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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



V 






DOCTRINE AND LIFE 



A STUDY OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL TRUTHS OF THE 

CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN THEIR RELATION 

TO CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 



GEORGE B. STEVENS, Ph.D., D.D. 

Professor in Yale University 





SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY 

New York BOSTON Chicago 

1895 



3" 



Copyright, 1895, by 
SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY. 



Entered in Stationer's Hall, 
London, England. 




TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, 
BOSTON, U.S.A. 



TO 
THE SACRED MEMORY OF 

JHg JKotijer 

MY FIRST AND BEST TEACHER IN RELIGION 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Relation of Doctrine to Life i 

II. "The Soul Naturally Christian v 17 

III. The Belief in God 34 

IV. Revelation and the Bible 52 

V. The Character of God 71 

VI. The Trinity 87 

VII. The Person of Christ 105 

VIII. The Work of the Spirit 122 

IX. The Fact of Sin 138 

X. The Atonement 158 

XI. The Intercession of Christ 176 

XII. The Doctrine of Faith 191 

XIII. The Doctrine of Love 203 

XIV. The Doctrine of Prayer 216 

XV. The Future Life 228 

Index 245 



PREFACE 



The aim of this volume is to present the principal 
doctrines of Christianity in their correlation with the 
Christian life. These doctrines have therefore been 
approached from the point of view of the Christian 
consciousness rather than from that of philosophy or 
criticism. Our main question in this study is not, How 
might the Christian philosopher justify the belief under 
review ? nor, How might the biblical scholar elaborate 
and defend it ? but, What is the adaptation of the 
given doctrine to the needs of the soul, and its use 
in the Christian life ? How is its truth attested in 
experience ? 

It will thus be seen that, while the volume deals 
with the subject-matter of theology, it differs consider- 
ably in its aim from theoretical treatises on Christian 
doctrine. Although I have often referred to the 
grounds on which Christian doctrines are held, and 
to some of the ways in which they may be defended, 
my purpose has not been chiefly apologetic. It has 
rather been my effort to illustrate the value of certain 
fundamental doctrines for Christian thought, life, and 
character. This practical value of the doctrines I have 
endeavored to exhibit by suggestion rather than by 
elaborate analysis and discussion. I have aimed so to 
present these doctrines as to suggest and justify their 



VI PREFACE 

practical religious significance and value. The purpose 
of the work is more fully illustrated, and its method 
more fully explained, in the first chapter. 

I have written in the firm conviction that the Chris- 
tian religion involves certain great doctrinal truths 
which represent the deepest realities of the universe 
and of human life. While insisting upon the inability 
of the mind fully to comprehend and define these reali- 
ties, I have also insisted that we need not, and, indeed, 
cannot, refuse to think about them, and that serious 
and reverent thought upon them is useful and reward- 
ing. I have written in the belief that the truths of 
Christianity are a great treasure for the mind and 
heart, as well as a guide for the regulation of conduct. 
I hold that the Christian religion includes all our life 
in the largest sense of that word. It does not consist 
merely in a certain method of outward action, or in 
the performance of certain duties technically called 
religious ; far more fundamentally does it consist in 
an inner spiritual life, quickening into new power, and 
equipping for its highest exercise and use, every faculty 
of the soul. With this conception of religion it is easy to 
show that doctrine is inseparable from life, since reflec- 
tion and thought are themselves important parts of life. 

If, now, it be true, as I believe it is, that Christianity 
is the absolute religion, and that its truths represent 
eternal realities and universal principles and laws, then 
is our discussion really a study of the leading factors 
and forces which are concerned in producing and foster- 
ing the life of the Spirit in man. 

g. b. s. 

Yale University, March i, 1895. 



DOCTRINE AND LIFE 



CHAPTER I 

THE RELATION OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE 

What is the relation of doctrine to life ; of theology 
to religion ? To this question we hear, in our time, 
the most diverse answers. One of the commonest 
statements is, that Christianity is not a dogma, but a 
life. On the other hand, we find that most churches 
expect of their members some manner of assent to cer- 
tain doctrines, and that special tests are applied to those 
who are to assume the functions of teaching and gov- 
ernment. The strifes of sects and the disputes of theo- 
logical parties have proceeded upon the idea of the 
importance of correct doctrine. The Christian church 
still remains divided into a multitude of independent 
organizations, not, as a rule, because the members of 
any one of these doubt the Christian character of the 
members of the others, but because they differ from 
them in one or more points of theory or belief. These 
differences, however, have not commonly been regarded 
as merely intellectual or theoretic, but as having some 
important relation to Christian life and character. 

The Roman Catholic, for example, does not deny the 

1 



2 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

Christian character of sincere Protestants. He admits 
the saving value of the faith which is exercised by 
them, and of the ordinances which are administered in 
Protestant communions. He does not deny the final 
salvation of true believers in Christ wheresoever found. 
He does, however, assert that the whole Protestant con- 
ception of the church is false. He affirms that God has 
committed to the church certain divine graces and ben- 
efits to bestow upon her children, and that the Protes- 
tant, by remaining outside the church (as he conceives 
of it), necessarily forfeits those benefits, and suffers 
in his life and character in consequence. The Roman 
Catholic Church thus regards its views of the organiza- 
tion and authority of the church, and of the nature and 
administration of its ordinances, as having important 
bearings upon the spiritual life. Its whole attitude 
toward Protestant organizations thus assumes that the 
differences between it and them have important rela- 
tions to religious character and welfare. 

On the other side, intelligent Protestants do not deny 
the Christian character and acceptability to God of 
sincere and devout Catholics. But they hold, in 
contrast to Catholic belief, that the direct access of 
all souls to God, through the one only Priest, Jesus 
Christ, the doctrine of salvation by divine grace alone 
on condition of faith, and the right of free thought 
and of private judgment in theology and in Biblical 
interpretation, are truths of vital importance for the 
encouragement of Christian thinking and scholarship, 
and for the development of Christian character. Thus 
the Protestant dissent from Roman Catholic doctrines 
assumes that its characteristic positions are practically 



THE RELATION OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE 3 

important ; that it makes a wide difference in all one's 
life and thinking, whether he accepts the Catholic or 
the Protestant view of the church and its sacraments, 
of the Pope and his authority, of the priesthood and 
its functions, of the Bible, its use and interpretation, 
and of many related points of divergence. 

In like manner, it would be easy to show that the 
differences among Protestants have been commonly 
assumed to involve important practical consequences. 
The Calvinist charges upon the Arminian a restriction 
of the absolute sovereignty of God, and a denial of the 
sole efficiency of God in salvation, which imperils the 
believer's assurance and security. In turn, the Armin- 
ian affirms that Calvinism makes God an arbitrary 
despot, and virtually excludes, by its doctrine of uncon- 
ditional election, the freedom and responsibility of man 
in respect to his destiny. Both these systems maintain 
that important religious consequences are involved in 
their respective philosophies. In like manner, the va- 
rious divergences among sects and parties have arisen 
and have been perpetuated, because they were believed 
to involve matters of principle, and to be of practical 
importance in their relation to the religious life and 
character. 

And yet we discern under all this diversity of 
opinion and practice, a fundamental unity. Christian 
life and character are essentially the same in Catholic 
and Protestant, in High Churchman and Dissenter, in 
Calvinist and Arminian. It is certain that if their 
differences are important, they are, at most, only rela- 
tively so ; they do not essentially involve the presence 
or absence of genuine religious character, sincere Chris- 



4 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tian living. Those who insist upon a certain church 
order as of special value and importance would find it 
difficult to prove that the favor of Heaven has not been 
granted as abundantly to those who do not possess this 
advantage as to themselves. If the presence and power 
of divine grace are to be judged by the actual devel- 
opment of Christian character and the actual fruits of 
Christian living, no monopoly of this grace can reason- 
ably be claimed by the representatives of any particular 
church or creed as against all others. What we find, 
then, when we look abroad upon the Christian world, is 
a very general insistence upon doctrines and practices 
as being important to the Christian life, and, at the 
same time, a real development of that life under many 
diverse forms of doctrinal belief and of ecclesiastical 
organization and usage. In view of these facts of 
Christian history the question recurs : What is the real 
relation of doctrine to life ? 

We may observe at the outset that the reality and 
importance of this relation cannot, in general, be denied, 
unless we are prepared to maintain the entire separate- 
ness of theory from practice, of thought from conduct. 
That no such general separation can be justified be- 
comes almost self-evident when a case in point is pre- 
sented. Who can doubt, for example, that it makes a 
great difference with a man's life whether he believes 
in a personal God in whose moral likeness he is made, 
or only in a blind, unknowable force of which he is a 
product ? Such beliefs as the belief in God touch the 
very core of character ; they involve, beyond question, 
our whole conception of life's meaning, value, and 
destiny. Similar in respect to its importance for 



THE RELATION OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE 5 

all thought and action is the question, what kind of a 
being God is. Whether God is a Moloch or a gracious 
Father makes an incalculable difference to the religious 
life. The same may be said respecting belief in such 
a fundamental doctrine as that of revelation. Who 
would maintain that it is a matter of moral indifference 
whether or not one believes that God has revealed to 
man his will and nature ? that the well-being of the 
world is in no way involved in the question, whether 
the Bible really represents a divine revelation, or is the 
mere product of man's own thinking upon religion ? 
Whether Christ was a divine Being, or only a wise 
and good man ? whether he was what he claimed to be, 
or a pretender ? whether man is sinful and guilty, or 
only unfortunate and imperfect ? whether his continu- 
ance in sin is attended with moral peril or not ? All 
these are questions which bear powerfully upon life. 

We must, then, in general, admit and maintain the 
importance of doctrine in its bearing upon life. Not 
all doctrines, however, are equally important in this 
relation. They are important in proportion as they 
concern what is central and essential in Christian 
thinking and living. The importance of various doc- 
trines, when judged by this test, will, of course, be dif- 
ferently estimated by different men. I shall make no 
effort to determine precisely the relative importance of 
the various doctrines which I am to review. I shall, 
however, assume, on the basis of the general consensus 
of the Christian world, that there is a set of doctrines 
which hold a close relation to the religious life and 
character. Of these doctrines I shall review those 
which seem to me to be most essential in Christianity, 



6 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

and shall aim to indicate their bearing upon the reli- 
gious life. I shall dwell mainly upon that nucleus of 
doctrine which the great mass of Christians in all ages 
and churches have commonly considered to be closely 
correlated to the Christian life, and whose importance 
may therefore be presumed to have been attested by 
centuries of Christian thought and experience. 

Bearing in mind this general distinction between 
opinions which can be shown vitally to involve Chris- 
tian living, and those which are, at most, but remotely 
related thereto, and fixing attention on the former only, 
let us now consider the nature of the relation between 
them and the actual life of religion. Let it be remem- 
bered that I am here speaking of such fundamental 
doctrines as that of God, of revelation, of Christ, of sin, 
and of salvation. 

The doctrines of Christian theology represent the 
efforts of the human mind to define the content of 
revelation, and to describe the principles and processes 
of the religious life. Christian doctrine has always to 
take account of these two great facts, — divine revelation 
and Christian experience. The question as to the 
relations of these two facts in theology is warmly 
debated in our time. Into that discussion it is aside 
from my present purpose to enter. I shall take up the 
truths which are commonly believed by Christians to 
constitute the essential subject-matter of revelation, and 
shall dwell upon their relations to the Christian con- 
sciousness, — to Christian thought, experience, and life. 
Looked at from this side, theology is an effort to 
construe the facts of religious experience. It is the 
approximate intellectual equivalent of the forces and 



THE RELATION OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE i 

processes which are operative in the religious life. 
The doctrine of God, for example, is an effort to define 
the knowledge of God which is involved in the Christian 
life. The doctrine will naturally have in it certain 
ideal elements ; that is, it will be an endeavor to define 
the highest conceivable Christian conception of God ; 
it will surpass the idea of God actually cherished by 
most persons ; it will aim to embody that notion of God 
which corresponds best to the full content of revela- 
tion, and which is best adapted to minister to progress 
in actual Christian living and thinking. 

It will thus be seen that theology and religion are 
related to each other as theory to fact or reality. It 
involves no disparagement of theology to say that it is 
theory. In all human life theory and practice are 
inseparably conjoined, and react powerfully upon each 
other. That a vicious theory may be harmful is evi- 
dent, since it may suggest or involve motives and 
methods of action. All theory is a product of thought, 
and thought is most closely related to conduct. There 
may, indeed, be theories which are so remote from all 
actual human interests as to involve no practical conse- 
quences, but this cannot be said of those which concern 
the more essential truths of religion. Moreover, the 
view so commonly advanced, that a certain theory may 
be inherently right, but that the opposite of it may be 
justified in practice, is a sophism which no sound phi- 
losophy can justify. It is important to adopt in theol- 
ogy and morals the soundest and most adequate theories 
which are attainable. In our time indifference to doc- 
trine seems to be thought by many to be the mark 
of supreme devotion to truth. But indifference to doc- 



8 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

trine is indifference to thought on the themes of 
religion, and religious thought can never be wisely dis- 
paraged in the supposed interest of religious life. I 
grant that it is important to recognize the limits 
beyond which we cannot go in our efforts to describe 
the nature and action of God and the mysteries of our 
own being. But these limitations do not preclude all 
thought about those realities. If we know anything 
about them, we must have theology. If we know noth- 
ing about them, how can we have even religion ? 

The relation of theology to religion may be compared 
to that of psychology to the facts of mental life. The 
science which we call psychology is an effort to describe 
and interpret the methods and laws of the mind's actual 
working. The two are not to be confounded, but neither 
are they to be separated. It would also be vain to dis- 
parage psychology as being purely speculative and use- 
less. Some sort of psychology must always exist where 
men are intelligent and thoughtful enough to turn their 
attention in upon the phenomena of their own mental 
life. All the objections which are made to theological 
doctrine can be made, and quite as plausibly, to mental 
philosophy and to metaphysics in general. The limita- 
tions of our knowledge, the variations in theory, and 
the indefiniteness of the results, may all be urged as ob- 
jections, and quite as cogently in the one case as in the 
other. It is vain to urge, in a comparison of the two 
sciences, that, because theology attempts to deal with 
God, and with a world of transcendent realities, while 
psychology deals with facts which are directly known in 
consciousness, psychology may be defended, while the- 
ology must be discarded; for religion also has it sub- 



THE RELATION 1 OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE 9 

jective side, and its facts, even with this limitation, 
challenge the effort to describe and interpret them. 
Theology cannot be wholly banished, unless the reli- 
gious nature of man is utterly denied or ignored, as 
psychology cannot be wholly discredited, unless it can 
be shown that man can know nothing about himself. 

As long as man remains a religious being, and a 
thinking being, there will be theology of some sort. 
But a special occasion and incentive to theological 
thought must arise when one adopts any specifically 
Christian ideas concerning God and man and duty. It 
is true, as we have said, that theology is theory, and 
that religion is life ; that theology is the intellectual 
construction of the realities which in religion are known 
and experienced. But so long as the life and experience 
which we call religion remain, and so long as the mind 
thinks about them, there will be theology or doctrine. 
It is also true that religion is primary and theology sec- 
ondary ; that the actual religious life and character are 
of first importance, and that the definition or descrip- 
tion of the realities which they involve is less essential. 
The main concern of the Bible, for example, is religion 
rather than theology. But it would have been utterly 
impossible for the Bible to accomplish its end except 
by the teaching of much theological doctrine. The 
teaching of Jesus concerning the fatherhood of God, and 
that of John concerning God as love, have an immedi- 
ately practical or religious aim, but they are not, on 
that account, less truly theological. All these teachings 
— the most practical of them — involve some view of 
what God is, of what God does, and of why God does it. 
It is utterly impossible to teach religion without teach- 



10 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

ing, at least, the elements of theology, as it is utterly 
impossible to live the life of religion without believing, 
and more or less fully defining to one's self, some doc- 
trines. The most unreflecting believer has some idea 
about God, some conception of what kind of a Being he 
is, and of what he has done in revealing his goodness 
and love ; some idea about his own relations to God, and 
the duties which spring out of those relations. Those 
ideas, however crudely conceived or inaccurately defined, 
are theological. I can conceive of a man having a 
theology without personal religion, but not a religion 
without theology. 

The objections which are so commonly heard in our 
time against doctrinal theology are really aimed, in most 
cases, at that over-subtlety and over-confidence in theo- 
logical thought which have certainly been quite too 
common. When, for example, theology attempts to ex- 
plore the interior nature of God, and to make a psychol- 
ogy of the divine mind, it is natural that the effort 
should provoke dissent. Doctrinal theology has often 
exposed itself thus to the charge of presumption. It 
has sometimes attempted to construct a fully rounded 
system of thought concerning God's nature and action, 
involving a complete philosophy of the universe. It 
has sometimes assumed to solve well-nigh every mystery, 
and to give an answer to almost every question which 
human curiosity might suggest. Of course, nothing of 
this sort can be done. To so ambitious a task the 
powers of the human mind are quite inadequate. It is 
proper and necessary that the limitations of theological 
thought should be recognized and even insisted upon ; 
but the recognition of these limitations is something 



THE RELATION OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE 11 

very different from a repudiation of theology altogether, 
or from a general attitude of indifference toward it. 

I cannot help thinking that expressions of indif- 
ference to theology from teachers of religion, and 
made apparently in the supposed interests of reli- 
gion, are very ill-considered. We may wisely seek to 
shun all untenable theology, whether untenable by 
reason of its denials, or by reasons of its excessive 
affirmations and over-confidence ; but we should shun 
this sort of theology, not in the spirit of protest against 
all theology, but in the interest of more rational and 
defensible doctrine. There has been a great deal of 
objectionable theology in the world — objectionable, 
in some cases, on account of its lack of evidence, in 
others, on account of its conflict with evidence or with 
the best instincts and intuitions of the human heart. 
But so also has there been a great deal of objection- 
able moral philosophy in the world ; yet this fact could 
hardly be urged as a valid reason for declining alto- 
gether to search for the grounds of the right and the 
good, or for refusing to study the nature and scope of 
human obligations. The existence of false and perni- 
cious systems of ethics might more properly be urged 
as a reason for the effort to construct the best and 
most salutary philosophy of the subject. That theol- 
ogy is always imperfect, often untrue, and sometimes 
even pernicious in its teaching, is no reason for renoun- 
cing its pursuit, but rather a reason for cautious but per- 
severing zeal in its study and elaboration. If much of 
the thinking concerning God and man and their rela- 
tions has been unsatisfactory, then there is the greater 
occasion for those who believe in the value and neces- 



12 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

sity of religion to define, as accurately and helpfully 
as possible within the limits of human knowledge, 
these great realities with which religion is concerned. 

In the light of these considerations, I believe it will 
appear that doctrine and life bear very much the same 
relation to each other in religion as thought bears to 
experience in any sphere of human interest and action. 
What we do cannot be uninfluenced by what we think. 
Especially true is this of religious opinions and be- 
liefs ; since they pertain to a realm to which belong, to 
so great an extent, the motives and principles of action. 
Even if men do not often fully embody their religious 
beliefs in conduct, it is nevertheless true that such be- 
liefs exert a powerful influence upon character. Nor 
do the virtuous lives of some men, who are reputed to 
be without a religious belief, prove the contrary. The 
number of men who are destitute of religious belief is 
not so great as is commonly supposed, and in many 
cases the practical fruitage in life and character of in- 
herited and traditional belief is still seen in lives which 
give no sign of positive attachment to them. In many 
such cases, however, it is easy to see that the power of 
ancestral faiths still persists, even though they are no 
longer consciously cherished. 

Thus far I have spoken of doctrine and life as if they 
were generically different. I have considered " life " 
more in its outward aspect, as conduct or action. 
Even upon this method of regarding the subject, a close 
relation between doctrine and life may be established. 
It appears to me, however, that when we inquire more 
closely into what " life " fairly includes, the relation 
appears to be even more intimate ; in fact, that life 



THE RELATION OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE 13 

necessarily includes the formation of doctrines or be- 
liefs, because life includes our thoughts and our con- 
victions. The action of the intellect, to which we more 
directly attribute our opinions or beliefs, cannot, in 
actual fact, be separated from the motives and springs 
of action in the emotions and the will. Indifference 
to doctrine in the supposed interests of life rests upon 
a very narrow conception of what life is, that is, upon 
a very superficial analysis of human nature. Thought 
is a part of life, and a very significant part of it. If, as 
Matthew Arnold insists, conduct is three-fourths of life, 
thought is, at least, its other fourth. But to me Mr. 
Arnold's dictum seems to exaggerate the proportions 
of conduct as a part of life, unless conduct be made to 
include, not only behavior or action, but also that 
whole play of thought and feeling, of motive and 
aspiration, within man, in which action has its main 
source and spring. Life must not be narrowed to the 
limits of external conduct. The religious life is an 
affair of the heart, an affair of the inner man, before 
it becomes an affair of outward action or conduct. The 
inner life rules the outer life ; the issues of life in 
action are from the heart of motive and desire. What 
a man does is rooted in what he is, in what he thinks 
and feels. 

We may, therefore, justly claim that in the relation 
of doctrine to life something more is involved than 
the influence of Christian truth upon conduct. The 
relation of this truth to the inner life is even closer 
and more important than its relation to action. Our 
present subject, therefore, includes the adaptation of 
Christian truth to the wants of man's mind and con- 



14 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

science, and its bearings upon the depth and quality of 
character. Religious beliefs — at least, some of them 
— bear an essential relation to the life of thought, feel- 
ing, and motive, and through these affect the issues 
of life in action. It is this close relation of truth to 
life, of doctrinal belief to experience, which I have in- 
tended to suggest in the alternative title of this vol- 
ume. In this title it is implied that both doctrine 
and life are involved in religion ; that religion may be 
contemplated more on its intellectual side as involving 
the acceptance of certain truths, or more on its prac- 
tical side as involving a certain spirit or temper, and 
certain modes and principles of action. Religion is 
many-sided, and should not be too narrowly defined. It 
should not, for example, be defined as consisting merely 
in the belief of certain truths, although it necessarily 
involves such belief. Nor does it consist exclusively 
in conduct, although it essentially involves conduct. It 
will thus appear that a study of the leading doctrines 
of Christianity, especially when they are continually 
regarded from the standpoint of Christian experience, 
may properly be called a study of the Christian religion. 
The tenets of Christianity may be studied from va- 
rious points of view. They may be presented with 
reference to showing their inherent reasonableness — 
this would be the method of philosophical theology. 
They may be considered with reference to the support 
which they find in the Bible — biblical theology pursues 
this plan. They may be approached more, as we shall 
seek to approach them, in the light of the constant 
inquiry, How is the doctrine in question correlated to 
practical Christian thinking and life ; not to the think- 






THE RELATION OF DOCTRINE TO LIFE 15 

ing of the philosopher merely, nor to that of the bibli- 
cal scholar, but to that of the average Christian man ? 
This inquiry involves to some extent, no doubt, a con- 
sideration of the grounds on which Christian beliefs 
rest ; but it directly and primarily involves the question 
as to their value and use in forming a helpful working 
conception of Christian life and duty. The effort will, 
therefore, be constantly made to present those aspects 
of Christian doctrine which stand in the most vital 
relation to the best development of the Christian con- 
sciousness and character. By applying, even if only 
imperfectly, this principle of limitation, we shall avoid, 
to a great extent, the realm of religious controversy. 
Most of the disputes among Christians have related to 
points and theories which, as the facts of Christian his- 
tory prove, have not necessarily involved, to any great 
extent, the interests of healthy religious thought and 
life ; since, in most such cases, men of diverse views 
concerning them have been equally earnest in teaching 
the great facts which underlie the various theories, and 
equally successful in conforming their own lives to the 
requirements of the gospel. Under various theories of 
the origin of sin, for example, men have held with equal 
strength of conviction to the doctrine that sin is uni- 
versal and guilty, and should be repented of and for- 
saken. A recognition of the fact of sin, and a clear 
conviction concerning its guilt and power, bear very 
important relations to practical Christian thought and 
life. But whether one believes, with the type of 
orthodoxy which has been most widely prevalent since 
Augustine, that all men actually and personally sinned 
in Adam, because all were seminally present in him as 



16 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

the head of the race ; or holds, with a later theory, that 
Adam stood forth as the representative of the race, 
and that all men sinned putatively in him, since he 
stood or fell for all his descendants, involves no inter- 
est of evangelical faith or of Christian character and 
conduct. One may withhold assent from both these 
theories and adopt some other, or may believe that no 
theory on the subject is feasible, without loss to sound 
and sincere Christian living or thinking. 

With all the emphasis which we justly lay upon 
Christianity as the religion of a good life, we are not 
to forget the value of its truths as incentives to reflec- 
tion and thought. In our busy age we may lay so 
great stress upon the outward acts and services of re- 
ligion, as to obscure the importance of clear, well- 
considered thinking upon the nature, the elements, and 
the demands of our faith. Christianity offers its truths 
to us for our contemplation, for the invigoration of our 
minds, and the uplifting of our spirits, through the con- 
sideration of the highest themes which can engage our 
attention. The deeds and services which we perform 
in the world will be in no small degree dependent for 
their effectiveness and power upon the maturity of 
religious thought, the depth of the inner life, and the 
richness of the spiritual experience out of which they 
spring. 



CHAPTER II 

" THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN " 

In the very first chapter of the Bible we read that 
man was made in the image of God (Gen. i. 27). The 
terms "image" and "likeness " which are here used, 
imply that man's nature is kindred to that of God from 
whom he came. This kinship of man to God includes, 
at least, two great points of likeness : (1) man is a per- 
sonal being, as God is ; and (2) man is, like his Maker, 
a moral being. Let us briefly consider the significance 
of each of these points. 

By a person is meant a being who is conscious of 
himself as having an independent power of choice and 
action. The stone and the plant have no consciousness 
of their own existence ; the animal even has only a partial 
self-consciousness. He is governed mainly by impulse 
and instinct. He does not know himself. If the dog 
could say, "lama dog," he would no longer be a dog ; 
he would be a person. Man alone, of all beings on 
earth, is personal. He alone possesses the clear con- 
sciousness of himself, and the power freely to direct his 
energies towards the ends which he chooses. He alone 
is, in the true sense of the word, a rational being ; that 
is, a being who knows himself as constituted capable of 
choice, of knowledge, and of thought. 

The innermost nature of God we cannot, indeed, 

17 



18 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

know ; but such revelations of himself as he has made, 
as well as all our knowledge of our own natures, justify 
us in believing that in respect to personality we are 
really kindred to him. What else can be the meaning 
of the statement, that in the beginning God breathed 
into man the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul (Gen. ii. 7) ? In our own mysterious personality, 
the full depths of which we can never sound, the per- 
sonality of God is reflected. Our conviction that God is 
personal, and that we are not living in a world which is 
ruled by mere blind forces, is inseparably bound up with 
the certainty that we ourselves are free, self-acting 
beings ; that the human soul has a peculiar self -mov- 
ing, self-knowing power which differentiates it from all 
lower orders of creation. 

But man's kinship to God is still more clearly seen 
when we contemplate his moral nature ; that is, his power 
of perceiving, distinguishing, and approving the good 
as opposed to the bad. This capacity separates man 
broadly from all inferior orders of being. The animal 
knows no right and wrong as such. He may have a 
keen perception, based on experience or training, of the 
consequences of certain actions ; but it does not follow 
that he can recognize the inherent blameworthiness or 
excellence of anything that he does, or be moved by 
what is properly called a good or an evil motive. Con- 
sequently we never attach to the action of animals the 
notion of proper moral responsibility or that of guilt. If 
the master blames his dog for some misdemeanor, and 
punishes him, saying, " He knew better," all that he can 
properly mean is that the animal's action was contrary 
to his training. In such cases, half the reason for the 



"THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 19 

punishment is always the hope of preventing through 
fear the recurrence of the same act. That the animal 
cherished any wicked purpose in his action, or is capable 
of the feeling of guilt or penitence for it, cannot be 
maintained. 

With man the case is different. He is not only con- 
scious of the power to choose between objects and 
actions, but he is conscious of a peculiar difference in 
their nature which we distinguish by the words good 
and bad, right and wrong. This distinction between 
good and bad is the fundamental fact in morals ; and 
the intuitive perception and application of it by man- 
kind are the fundamental facts of all law, order, and 
civilization. This distinction, and the capacity of man 
to recognize and apply it, lie at the basis of all moral 
philosophy. It is these facts which give to the word 
moral a distinctive meaning which cannot be merged or 
resolved into anything else. The difference between 
right and wrong refuses to be transformed into the 
difference between pleasant and painful, or into the dif- 
ference between expedient and inexpedient. The origin 
and persistence of moral distinctions cannot be explained 
by association, experience, or utility. The consciousness 
of them is absolutely fundamental in human nature. 
Man is a moral being, not by habit, not by calculation, 
not by fear of consequences, but by nature. He is so 
because he is made in the image of God, in whose being 
the principles of all right and truth have their seat, and 
in whose consciousness all that is contrary to these 
must be known as wrong and false. Man is made in 
God's moral image, because, in some measure, like God 
himself, he knows and approves the good in motive, 



20 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

action, and character, while from it he distinguishes the 
bad as contrary to eternal law, and associates with the 
latter the idea of its desert or guilt 

These considerations prepare us to see the grounds 
on which it is maintained that man is naturally religious. 
If he is allied to God by nature, if, in some essential 
respects, he is like God, it follows that he is capable of 
knowing God, and of living under a sense of his guid- 
ance and care. The tendency of man to believe in a 
divine Being on whom he is dependent, and to whom 
he is responsible, and his tendency to regard this Being 
with reverence, and to render him some form of wor- 
ship and service, are grounded in his kinship to God. 
The normal utterance of the soul is a cry for God, 
and no conviction of the human heart is stronger and 
more persistent than that of his existence and govern- 
ment. Thus human nature itself attests the fundamen- 
tal truths of religion. 

The great writers on religion in all ages have justly 
laid strong stress upon the native religiousness of man. 
Nowhere has this truth found nobler expression than in 
the fervent words of Augustine : " O God, thou hast 
made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till 
they rest in thee." 1 And before Augustine, Tertullian 
appealed on behalf of Christian truth to the testimony 
of "the human soul, naturally Christian," 2 that is, 
adapted by nature to religion. This thought he has 
elaborated in a striking passage. He summons the 
soul of man into court to give its testimony to its sense 

1 Fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donee requiescat in te. 

Confessions, Bk. i ch. i. 

2 O testimonium animae naturaliter Christianae. Apology, Ch. 17. 



"THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 21 

of God, and to its conviction of its own divine origin. 
" Take thy stand in the midst, O Soul," he exclaims, 
" and say whether thou art a divine and eternal sub- 
stance, or the very opposite of divine, a mortal thing ; 
whether thou art received from heaven or sprung from 
earth; stand forth, I say, and give thy witness." He 
then proceeds to say that he seeks the verdict, not of 
the soul that has been warped and prejudiced by the 
tenets of some school, " trained in libraries, fed in Attic 
academies and porticoes," but of the soul which in 
native simplicity will utter its true natural feeling and 
conviction : " I address thee, simple and rude, uncul- 
tured and untaught ; I demand of thee the things which 
thou bringest with thee into man, which thou knowest 
either from thyself, or from thine author, whoever he 
may be." " These testimonies of the soul," he adds, 
" are as true as they are simple ; as simple as they 
are common ; as common as they are universal ; as 
universal as they are natural ; as natural as they are 
divine." * 

It would be difficult to find in all literature a more 
forcible presentation of the truth that man is by nature 
a religious being, than that which meets us in the pages 
of the ancient writer. 

It is an impressive evidence of the religious nature of 
man that history brings us no record of any people on 
the face of the globe wholly without a religion. There 
have been individual atheists, but never an atheistic peo- 
ple. This fact can only be explained by holding that 
religion is natural to man. He has never been without 
it in some form, and never can be. Even those individ- 

1 On the Testimony of the Soul. Chs. i, 5. 



22 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

uals who wish to have no religion seldom wholly suc- 
ceed. There are times when their religious nature 
cries out of the depths of their unbelief. The material- 
ists of our age who abjure Christianity still have at 
times words of reverence for the inscrutable " Power," 
the unknowable " Force," which seems to rule the world. 
For man to be wholly without a religion he must become 
something less than man. 

There is something in human nature which leads us 
to reach out beyond the bounds of the visible, and to 
people unseen realms with realities which to the eye of 
faith are as certain as are the forms discerned by the 
senses. " All men are born in faith," said the philos- 
opher Fichte, meaning that the exercise of faith is 
natural to man. It is this tendency to faith, this in- 
stinctive belief in the invisible world, which has always 
given, and must always give, religion its great hold upon 
the human heart. Christianity is, indeed, a religion of 
objective fact and revelation ; but even revelation, in 
order to accomplish its end, must find in man the crav- 
ing and capacity to appropriate its truths. It must 
meet and satisfy native wants. The certainties which 
it discloses must be such as man has, from impulses 
within himself, desired and sought to possess. Just as 
the outer world could never reveal itself to us except 
by a forth-putting of our perceptive powers which corre- 
sponds to the presentation of the realities of the universe 
to us, so God and the spiritual world could never be- 
come assured realities did not our natures yearn for 
them, and, as it were, go forth to meet the manifesta- 
tions of the spiritual world which God is ever making 
to our spirits. We could never hear God's voice within 



" THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 23 

us, speaking of himself and of a spiritual order, if we 
were not akin to God from whom we came, and who has 
made us for himself. 

If there were no capacity for faith in man, no deep 
and ineradicable tendency to belief in spiritual beings, 
there could be no religion ; or, at most, religion would 
be a mere matter of conjecture and speculation, without 
the power of living conviction and confident hope. The 
counterpart of the truth that God has revealed himself 
to man is, that man has ever been feeling after God, if 
haply he might find him. I know of no finer expres- 
sion of the truth that the soul of man, when it freely 
utters its own nature, cries out for God, than that which 
Longfellow has given us in the reminder that — 

" In all ages 
Every human heart is human, 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
For the good they comprehend not; 
That the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness, 
And are lifted up and strengthened." 1 

We are thus justified in holding that religion, in the 
comprehensive sense of that word, rests upon facts of 
human nature which can neither be eradicated nor de- 
nied. These cravings, convictions, and hopes of the 
human heart constitute the capacity for religion, and the 
power for perceiving and appropriating divine revela- 
tion. The word of God in revelation is heard and wel- 
comed because the human soul had been hoping to hear 
it. The well-springs of divine truth have refreshed 

i The Song of Hiawatha., Introduction. 



24 DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 

mankind, and satisfied its soul's thirst, because in all 
ages the eager cry of the human spirit has been that 
which is voiced in the Psalmist's words : " As the hart 
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after 
thee, O God " (Ps. xlii. i). Religion, therefore, does not 
stay in the world merely because religious teachers have 
uttered and propagated its truths, it does not stay in 
the world because philosophers are arguing for it and 
theologians defending it, nor would it leave the world 
if all these should argue against it. Religion is here 
because it is at once the life of God in man and the 
expression of man's own nature, and because the human 
soul attests its truth in experience. 

But it may be asked, Has this native religiousness 
of man anything directly to do with Christianity ? Is 
not its significance confined to mere " natural religion " ? 
This question is partly answered by the consideration 
already presented ; namely, that the truths of religion 
could not be revealed to man, and made effective in his 
experience, if he did not possess a natural aptitude for 
them. This fact alone would give his religious nature 
a very important relation to Christian revelation. But 
a much more essential relation even than this may be 
established. 

It has been common among Christian writers to 
distinguish very sharply between " natural " and " re- 
vealed " religion, and to treat the former as a product 
of man's " unaided reason." But we may well question, 
with John Henry Newman, 1 whether the reason of man 
ever is unaided. Is it, indeed, probable that such is 
the case ? Does it accord with the New Testament to 

1 Oxford University Sermons, p. 18. 



"THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 25 

believe that all goodness outside Judaism and historic 
Christianity is mere " natural " goodness, and that all 
religion outside these is a mere product of man's own 
mind untouched by any divine influence? For an an- 
swer to this question, let us turn to the two master 
spirits of the apostolic age, — John and Paul. 

In the prologue of his Gospel, the Apostle John tells 
us that the light, that is, the goodness, mercy, and 
love, which dwelt in the person of the eternal Son of 
God previous to his appearance on earth, "was the 
light of men " (John i. 4), and adds (verse 9) that this 
true light lights every individual man. These verses 
certainly contain the idea that Christ is a source of 
light to men universally ; that, in some way and in 
some degree, God reveals himself through Christ to 
mankind. 

We find that John makes this idea of Christ's uni- 
versal relations and activity the keynote of his Gospel. 
Calling him, in accordance with a method of speech 
current in his time, by the term " Word," he begins by 
declaring : " In the beginning was the Word " (John i. 1). 
Christ, the Revealer of God, the Saviour of men, does 
not begin to be at Bethlehem, and does not begin to 
work for men in Judea and Galilee. He was eternally 
with God and was God ; he bore a part in the creation 
of the world, — which includes the men whom he is to 
save, — and the life that dwelt in him was the light of 
men. Sin soon invaded human life, and shrouded the 
world in moral darkness. This light of the divine 
Christ, however, kept shining on, piercing the clouds 
that veiled the human spirit, even though the darkness 
did not apprehend it (John i. 5). As the sun shines on 



26 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

throughout the whole day, though clouds and storms 
may overspread the earth and darken our eyes to its 
brightness, so Christ through all the ages came invis- 
ibly, spiritually, into the world, and illumined the mind 
of every human being, so far as that mind was capable 
of illumination. 

When, at length, he appeared in human form, he 
came first to his " own possession," as John calls the 
Jewish nation (John i. n). They were "his own," 
because he had specially guided them throughout all 
their history, and sought to prepare them for fuller 
revelation. He had been their deliverer from bondage ; 
he had gone with them in their wanderings in the 
desert, a " spiritual rock " of which they drank (to 
use Paul's expression, I Cor. x. 4) ; he had filled their 
temple with his glory, and inspired the visions of their 
prophets. They were thus " his own " by right ; but 
they received him not. The fundamental idea which 
runs through this whole description is, that the history 
of the world is the real sphere of Christ's manifestation. 

Scholars have been much divided on the question as 
to where the line runs in John's prologue between the 
thought of Christ's activity previous to his incarnation, 
and that of his life and work in the flesh. I do not 
think that any such line can be sharply drawn. The 
drawing of such a line is, indeed, made almost impos- 
sible by John's very conception of Christ's work. For 
him the temporal is comprehended in the eternal. The 
work of Christ in all ages is one work. It is continu- 
ous, unbroken. That which he did in the flesh is but 
a special form of that which he is always doing. It is, 
to use one of Horace Bushnell's words, a " transac- 



"THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 27 

tional " revelation of principles of life and being, which 
are eternal in his essence and perpetually operative. 
When one attains to this conception, there is little 
occasion to mark off sharply his earthly career from all 
that preceded it, since his work on earth is but a con- 
tinuance of his unceasing activity in revelation and 
redemption. 

The Fourth Gospel contains other illustrations of 
John's larger idea of the Christ. He treats the saying 
of the high priest Caiaphas, that Jesus should die for 
the nation (John xi. 50), as an unconscious prophecy, 
capable of being understood in such a sense that it 
would express the deepest truth of Jesus' mission. 
And this " prophecy " declared that the death of Jesus 
should not be for the Jewish nation only, " but that he 
might also gather together into one the children of God 
that are scattered abroad " (verse 52). The apostle 
clearly implies in this passage that there is a true sense 
in which children of God among the heathen nations 
may be spoken of, and that the work of Christ contem- 
plated uniting them into one fellowship. Our Lord 
asserts the same truth very explicitly when he says : 
" Other sheep I have which are not of this fold," — not 
of this Jewish fold, — " them also I must bring, and 
they shall hear my voice ; and they shall become one 
flock, one shepherd " (John x. 16). 

Let me now briefly illustrate Paul's idea. He teaches 
that revelation is universal. Among the heathen, God 
did not leave himself without a witness to his benevo- 
lence and providence, but in the succession of the 
seasons, and the bounties of nature, taught them of 
himself (Acts xiv. 17). The course of history is also, 



28 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

to his mind, a method of divine revelation (Acts xvii. 
26). Above all, is the moral nature, the conscience, a 
point of contact between God and man (Rom. ii. 14, 15). 
That which men were capable of knowing concerning 
God was manifested to them through the creations of 
the visible world, which the reason of man is able so to 
interpret as to assure him of God's power and divine- 
ness (Rom. i. 19, 20). 

But it may be asked, Had Christ anything to do with 
this general disclosure of God in nature and conscience ? 
How can we doubt it when we read that through him 
all things were created (Col. i. 16), that in him all things 
consist (Col. i. 17), and that his work of reconciliation 
contemplates the unifying and harmonizing of all things 
and all beings that in all of them he might have the 
pre-eminence (Col. i. 18, 20; Eph. ii. 14-18)? In the 
epistles just cited, Paul strikingly depicts the world-wide 
significance of Christ, whose work it is to abolish the 
discords of human life, and break down the barriers that 
separate men from God and from one another, so that 
there shall be neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor 
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, 
but Christ shall be all and in all (Col. hi. 11). 

It seems to me very significant that this larger idea 
of Christ and his work is presented to us by the two 
greatest teachers of the apostolic age, — John and Paul. 
So far as we can judge, these were the two men of 
that time who had penetrated most deeply into the 
heart of the gospel, and had attained the widest and 
noblest conception of salvation and redemption through 
Christ. 

It is evident that if we are to adopt these ideas of 



"THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 29 

Christ's relation to all mankind, and of his spiritual 
presence in all man's life and history, we must greatly 
enlarge our conception of Christ beyond that ordinarily 
entertained. We must not limit our idea of his person 
and work to the few years during which Jesus lived in 
human form among men. Nor must we be content to 
expand this notion by merely adding to it the thought 
of a continued spiritual presence and activity of Christ 
in the world since his ascension. We must carry our 
conception of Christ and his work back into the ages 
previous to his incarnation, and extend it, not to the 
Jewish nation alone, but to mankind universally. 

And does not this view of our Saviour's world- 
redeeming mission best accord with our highest con- 
ception of the character of God ? Why should we not 
think that God, as the absolutely good, the eternal sun 
of love and truth, the source of all light, pours down 
upon the whole world of souls his beneficent rays, illu- 
minating, in different ways and degrees, all who open 
their hearts to his influence ? Who can believe that 
God is light (i John i. 5), and suppose that he shuts 
up his rays within himself, sending down only here and 
there a beam into the darkness of the world's ignorance 
and sin ? To me it seems more consonant with the 
character of God to suppose that in such ways as are 
possible and fully known only to himself, the Father of 
spirits reveals himself to all men, and that men are 
responsible for the way in which they welcome or reject 
such light as they have. I am far from claiming that 
on any view of this subject which we may take, we 
can explain the enigmas of history and the mysteries 
of Providence ; I am only urging that the idea of some 



30 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

kind of a manifestation of God to all men accords with 
the conception of his universal benevolence. * 

Now, if, as John and Paul teach, Christ is the me- 
dium of this universal manifestation of God, then all 
revelation is Christian revelation. Christ is the light 
which lights every man ; not within the limits of his- 
toric Christendom, and within the bounds of Judaism 
merely, but in all nations and in all ages. In the early 
church the belief was common that God revealed him- 
self in invisible ways, through Christ, to pure and lofty 
spirits in the heathen world. Justin Martyr says that 
Christ, who was and is in every man, was partially 
known to Socrates ; 2 and Augustine declares that 
Christianity is as old as the creation. 3 This concep- 
tion is but a reproduction of John's idea of Christ as 
the source of life and the light of men. 

This view of Christ's universal relation to the race in 
revelation and redemption does not limit the unique sig- 
nificance of that special course of revelation of which 

1 The narrower idea of God's purpose of grace which was formerly dominant 
in theology, is well illustrated in the statements found in one of the letters of the 
eminent revival preacher, George Whitefield. He says : — 

" I frankly acknowledge I believe the doctrine of reprobation, that God intends to 
give saving grace, through Jesus Christ, only to a certain number, and that the rest of 
mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left by God to continue in sin, will at last 
suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages. . . . Our Lord knew for whom he 
died. There was an eternal compact between Father and Son. A certain number 
(of souls) was then given to him as the purchase and reward of his obedience and death. 
For these he prayed, and not for the world. For these, and these only, he is now inter- 
ceding, and with their salvation he will be fully satisfied." 

2 Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates, for he was and is the 
Word who is in every man, etc. — Apology ii, io. 

3 Nam res ipsa quae nunc Christiana religio nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos, 
nee defuit ab initio generis humani, quousque ipse Christus veniret in carne, 
unde vera religio quae jam erat, coepit appellari Christiana. — Retractions I, 
xiii. 3. 



"THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 31 

the Bible is the product and record. That revelation, 
on the contrary, seems far more glorious when we 
remember that its central figure, Jesus Christ, is not 
merely an historic character like other men, who ap- 
peared in the world for a few brief years, and then 
passed away, but that he is the eternal Son of God, the 
medium of revelation to all men in all times, who in his 
incarnation reveals the Father in a human life, and 
works, as he himself says (John v. 17), in accord with 
the ceaseless working of the Father, for the salvation 
of men. If Christ is, and always has been, everywhere 
touching and influencing the souls of men, it is none 
the less true that he has spoken in his life and teaching 
on earth with unexampled clearness, and that this most 
adequate revelation is the standard by which we are 
to estimate all less definite disclosures which, by their 
very nature, we can but imperfectly describe and 
measure. 

If, then, all revelation is, so far as it goes, Christian, 
and if man's religious nature constitutes a capacity for 
receiving revelation, it is easy to see a profound and 
true meaning in Tertullian's phrase (which I have 
adopted as a fitting title for this chapter) : " The human 
soul naturally Christian." If, as John says, without 
Christ nothing was made that has been made, it is but 
natural to conclude that he is everywhere active in his 
world. And if he is the true light which lights every 
man, then must all goodness in men be due to his 
illumination. All forms of morality and all types of 
religion are the product of man's divinely given reli- 
gious nature illuminated and quickened by the spirit- 
ual presence of the eternal Word. What, then, should 



32 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

prevent us from magnifying the spiritual significance 
and work of Christ by regarding him as the source of 
all good in men, and by claiming that all goodness is, 
so far as it goes, Christian ? 

Religion has taken many forms in the world ; but 
wherever there is a true spirit of worship and service, 
there we may affirm the presence of Christ, even 
though it be unrecognized. If Christianity is, by its 
very nature, the universal religion, then must all reli- 
gion, so far as it is real and genuine, be Christian, and 
all goodness, all love, kindness, and helpfulness, must 
be Christian, whether called so or not, since the Chris- 
tian religion is the life of love in fellowship with God. 
All religion must be essentially one, and all goodness 
must be essentially one. If this world was made, as 
Paul says, through Christ and for Christ, and if Christ 
is, and always has been, in his world, as John teaches, 
then let us speak no more of mere "natural goodness " 
and " unaided reason," but rather recognize our Lord in 
the true dignity and glory of his world-wide significance 
and activity, and believe without hesitation that wher- 
ever men, in sincere penitence and reverence, stretch 
out their hands to heaven, God sees the germs of that 
" faith" or acceptance which is the condition of entrance 
to the kingdom of his grace. 1 

1 Those who have read the foregoing chapter with sympathy will be inter- 
ested in the following noble passage from John Henry Newman : — 

" He ' enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.' His are the dictates of 
the moral sense, and the retributive reproaches of conscience. To him must be ascribed 
the rich endowments of the intellect, the radiation of genius, the imagination of the poet, 
the sagacity of the politician, the wisdom (as Scripture calls it) which now rears and 
decorates the temple, now manifests itself in proverb or in parable. The old saws of 
nations, the majestic precepts of philosophy, the luminous maxims of law, the oracles of 
individual wisdom, the traditionary rules of truth and justice and religion, even though 



"THE SOUL NATURALLY CHRISTIAN" 33 

embedded in the corruption, or alloyed with the pride of the world, bespeak his original 
agency and his long suffering presence. Even where there is habitual rebellion against 
him, or profound, far-spreading social depravity, still the undercurrent, or the heroic 
outburst of natural virtue, as well as the yearning of the heart after what it has not, and 
its presentiment of its remedies, are to be ascribed to the Author of all good. Anticipa- 
tions or reminiscences of his glory haunt the mind of the self-sufficient sage, and of the 
pagan devotee ; his writing is upon the wall, whether of the Indian fane, or of the porti- 
cos of Greece. He introduces himself, he all but concurs, according to his good 
pleasure and in his selected season, in the issues of unbelief, superstition, and false 
worship, and changes the character of acts by his overruling operation. He condescends, 
though he gives no sanction, to the altars and shrines of imposture, and he makes his 
own fiat the substitute for its sorceries. He speaks amid the incantations of Balaam, 
raises Samuel's spirit in the witch's cavern, prophesies of the Messias by the tongue of 
the sibyl, and baptizes by the hand of the misbeliever. He is with the heathen dramatist 
in his denunciations of injustice and tyranny, and his auguries of divine vengeance upon 
crime. Even on the unseemly legends of a popular mythology he casts his shadow, and 
is dimly discerned in the ode or the epic, as in troubled water or in fantastic dreams. 
All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or 
small, be it perfect or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural, moral as well as 
material, comes from him." — Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Edu- 
cation, pp. 96, 97. 



CHAPTER III 

THE BELIEF IN GOD 

"The question whether there exists a Creator and 
Ruler of the universe, has been answered in the affirm- 
ative by the highest intellects that have ever lived." 
These words of Charles Darwin state an undeniable 
fact. But the conviction of the divine Existence is 
not a peculiarity of the "highest intellects." How- 
ever we may explain it, some form of belief in a su- 
pernatural power is practically universal among men. 
Naturally enough, this belief appears in the most di- 
verse forms, according to the differing native charac- 
teristics and mental and moral development of- the peo- 
ple evincing it. Among the lowest tribes it emerges 
in the form of crude superstitions, the worship of 
animals and of inanimate objects. More developed 
heathen peoples have regarded the heavenly bodies or 
the elements as representing supreme power in the 
world. Highly cultivated nations, such as the Greeks, 
have developed elaborate systems of religious belief 
and worship by personifying and deifying natural pro- 
cesses and forces. In such forms of religion a keen 
appreciation of natural beauty and a native poetic feel- 
ing blend with the sense of the supernatural to fill the 
world with divine powers and agents. Each department 
of nature and of life is presided over by its appropriate 

34 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 35 

divinity, who is more or less completely identified in the 
popular thought with the functions and activities which 
are ascribed to him. Thus, Mars is the god of war, 
Neptune of the sea, Minerva the goddess of wisdom, 
and Ceres of the harvest. Apollo is the god of light, 
and the sun is conceived of as the fiery car in which he 
daily traverses the heavens. 

But it may be asked, " How can such forms of su- 
perstition and polytheism be regarded as illustrations 
of belief in God ? They seem rather to imply the exist- 
ence of innumerable gods, and to involve the identifi- 
cation of these gods with nature." It is true that in 
such forms of religion the idea of the divine power 
which rules the world is not concentrated and unified 
into the conception of a single personal being, but is 
broken up and distributed so as to yield the notion of 
many divinities. But it is to be noticed that all forms 
of belief in a higher than human power, which presides 
over nature and the life of man, do, at least, illustrate 
the conviction of the supernatural among men. How- 
ever gross the idea of divine power or powers may be, 
it represents man's native sense of his dependence upon 
some force or control which is superior to himself. 
The unification of the various divine potencies, as 
conceived of by the more primitive peoples, could 
hardly be expected. It is to be observed, however, 
that they are capable of unification, and that a distinct 
tendency to unify them is seen among the more reflec- 
tive heathen nations. The philosophers of Greece, for 
example, speak of God as well as of gods, thereby 
showing a tendency to represent the various divinities 
as expressions or manifestations of one supreme, cen- 
tral divine power. 



36 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

It is but reasonable to expect that peoples who are 
low in the scale of intelligence and moral development 
should possess only gross and crude ideas of divine 
power. Yet the same childlike reflection which leads 
them to associate this power with animal life or with 
natural processes, and thus to people the world with 
countless divinities, is capable, under enlightenment 
and training, of advancing to a stage in which it would 
elevate and combine all these various powers into the 
unity of a single supreme intelligence who governs all 
things, and directs them toward the realization of ra- 
tional ends. That the " nature-peoples " are not able to 
carry their conceptions of supernatural power so far and 
so high, involves no objection to the claim that it is 
natural for man to believe in God. The form of this 
belief must always be largely dependent upon the con- 
ditions in which he develops it. But the cruder forms 
in which the belief appears are as real testimony to 
man's natural sense of the divine as are the higher and 
more intelligent forms. 

This natural tendency to theistic belief bears a most 
important relation to Christian revelation. The Bible 
everywhere assumes the existence of God. Revela- 
tion always presupposes it as true and admitted. The 
biblical writers point to the evidences of divine power 
and goodness, not as arguments by which men may be 
convinced of God's existence, but as motives whereby 
they may be incited to worship and obey him. Christ 
and his apostles always spoke of God as if men univer- 
sally believed in his existence, and needed but to have 
their imperfect conceptions of his nature enlarged and 
elevated. We thus see that Christianity, and what is 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 37 

called "natural religion," have, in great measure, a 
common basis. In some way man possesses an idea, 
a conviction, a knowledge of God. A great Christian 
teacher does not hesitate to affirm that this knowledge 
is " manifest in " man, because God himself " manifested 
it to" him (Rom. i. 19). Christianity thus appears as 
the supplement of that knowledge of God which is 
native to the human spirit, and as the completion of 
the crude and imperfect worship and service which 
are based upon such knowledge. Man's religious nature, 
and the instinctive belief in the supernatural, are the 
permanent ground for Christianity's appeal to the hu- 
man heart, and are, therefore, an essential theme in 
any study of the Christian religion. 

Let us now, without adopting terms which are too 
technical, and without going into needless refinements, 
seek to describe the principal forms of thought in con- 
nection with which the conviction of the divine Exist- 
ence asserts itself in the mind. 

The contemplation of the external world probably 
furnishes to the mind the most immediate and obvious 
occasion for the belief in a divine Being. The phenom- 
ena of nature and the outward events of life are the 
facts which the more primitive peoples seize upon as 
showing the presence of divine power in the world. 
And to the most cultured minds the beauty, order, and 
adaptation which the physical universe displays, ever 
remain an impressive evidence of supreme intelligence 
and power. Especially has the contemplation of the 
heavens, with their retinues of shiniiig worlds, evoked in 
the human mind in all ages the conviction of the exist- 
ence of God. To this fact all history and literature 



38 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

bear the most abundant witness. The principal divini- 
ties of mythology were associated with the sky, or were 
even identified with the heavenly bodies. The devout 
exclamation of the Hebrew Psalmist, " The heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth 
his handiwork" (Ps. xix. i), does not express this truth 
more strongly than did the English poet, Edward 
Young, when he said that " an undevout astronomer is 
mad." The famous saying of the philosopher Kant, 
that there were " two things which, the more he con- 
templated them, filled his soul with awe, — the starry 
heavens above him, and the moral law within," is not 
stronger in its testimony to the effect of the wonders of 
nature upon the mind, than are the words of the scepti- 
cal litterateur, Voltaire, who said, " The world embar- 
rasses me, and I cannot think that so beautiful a clock 
is without a clockmaker." 

Probably most persons, if asked what is the clear- 
est evidence of the existence of God, would answer 
by appealing to nature. This wonderful world is ever 
before our eyes; its beauty and majesty perpetually 
confront us ; and there are few minds so dull as never 
to have been powerfully moved by some of the grander 
aspects of nature, — the moonlit sky bejewelled with 
stars, the weird glories of the thunder-storm, or the 
fury of the ocean when lashed by the tempest. It is to 
the impression made upon the mind by "the things 
that are made " — the external world — that the apostle 
Paul attributes the belief of the heathen in the " invisi- 
ble things " of God (Rom. i. 20). He declares that in 
all times the mind of man has clearly perceived in 
nature the evidence of " everlasting power and divin- 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 39 

ity " — an assertion which the history of religions amply 
illustrates and confirms. 

In discussing the grounds of belief in God, philoso- 
phy and theology have made great use of the fact that 
the contemplation of nature begets in the mind a con- 
viction of the divine Existence. In connection with 
this fact two of the principal historical arguments for 
the being of God have been developed, — the argument 
from the relation of cause and effect, and that from the 
relation of means to end. To attempt a critical esti- 
mate of the logical value of these " arguments " would 
lead us into very abstruse considerations. It is enough 
for our present purpose to point out their practical 
import. The former aims to put into logical form the 
conviction that the world has an intelligent cause. 
This it does either by assuming that the world is con- 
tingent, or that it shows marks of intelligence. In the 
latter case this argument easily merges into the " argu- 
ment of design," which may be stated, in syllogistic 
form, thus : The adaptation of means to ends is the 
function of intelligence ; the world is a system in which 
we behold this adaptation ; therefore the world has its 
cause and ground in intelligence. 

Whatever may be thought of this syllogism as an 
"argument" or "proof," — and its logical value has 
been variously estimated, — it is certain that it expresses 
a strong and well-nigh universal conviction to which the 
contemplation of nature gives rise in the mind. My 
own opinion is that the belief in God has far deeper 
grounds than any "argument" or syllogism can fur- 
nish ; that the conviction of a supreme Intelligence, 
which is evoked into clear consciousness by applying 



40 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

the ideas of cause and design to the universe, does not 
follow and is not derived from the contemplation of 
nature, but is a primary conviction of the mind which 
it brings to all its observation of nature. This convic- 
tion is not attained by argument or inference from the 
facts of nature, but is possessed as an essential mental 
principle. The " argument " of design does not, there- 
fore, conduct the mind beyond its own primary conviction. 
The contemplation of nature elicits this conviction into 
clear consciousness, and opens a sphere for its application ; 
but it does not originate it, and cannot make it a more 
sure possession of the mind than it already is. The 
grounds for this view of the subject may be better 
presented in connection with the reasons for belief in 
God which lie within man himself. 

In the last analysis, man himself is the only con- 
vincing proof of the being of God. " The descent into 
our own souls is the ascent to God." The world is 
perceived to exhibit harmony, order, and design, and 
to show evidence of being the product of intelligence, 
because man's own reason is so constituted that he is 
able to perceive and appreciate beauty and adaptation. 
We could not arrive at the conviction that the universe 
is grounded in reason if we were not ourselves rational 
beings. It is the power of reason to interpret the universe 
which gives rise to the conviction that it must have had 
an intelligent cause, and that it is adapted to realize 
rational ends At this view of the matter, the Apostle 
Paul seems plainly to hint in the passage already quoted, 
where he says, that by means of the things that were 
made, God's eternal power and divinity are clearly per- 
ceived by the reason of man (Rom. i. 20). 1 It is not 

1 The Greek is : to's noifjuaffiv voo(j[i(va KaBoparai^ k. r. X, 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 41 

the " things that were made " in and of themselves, but 
it is these as perceived and interpreted by the reason, 
that yield the assurance of the divine Existence. The 
reason brings to its contemplation of nature certain 
native convictions and principles. These are the light 
of all its seeing in the study of the world. We find 
causation in nature because causality is an inherent 
principle of our own mental life. We find purpose and 
adaptation in the world because we have first found 
them in ourselves. Our convictions respecting nature 
as a sphere of intelligence and design, when traced 
back, have their ground in the principles and laws of 
reason which we know directly only in ourselves. It is 
necessary, therefore, to ask in what way and on what 
grounds reason gives its testimony to the existence of 
God. 

The question has been much debated, whether or not 
the existence of God can be proved. I hold that it can 
be proved in the sense that adequate grounds for it can 
be shown to exist. It cannot be proved in the sense 
in which a proposition in geometry is proved, that is, 
by a process of putting together several more elemen- 
tary propositions which combine to demonstrate the one 
in question. The existence of God is the most secure 
of all certainties, because it is itself the basis and pre- 
supposition of all other truths. It would, therefore, be 
correct to say that, while the existence of God cannot 
be demonstrated, it can be proved that it must be 
assumed. 

The testimony of reason to the existence of God can 
best be considered under two heads, (i) the testimony 
of the speculative or thinking powers, and (2) the tes- 



42 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

timony of the moral reason or the conscience. Both 
these elements of our nature belong to reason, which is 
the total power of the mind to know ; but they are here 
distinguished for convenience, both because they are 
commonly separated in thought, and because they do 
represent two different aspects of our rational life. 

When, by reflection, we seek to trace to its primary 
source our conviction of the divine Existence, we dis- 
cover that its deepest ground lies in the very nature of 
our own rational and moral being. It is not primarily 
the necessity of assuming a cause of the world, but 
the necessity of assuming an adequate cause of our- 
selves, that gives to the belief in God its great strength 
and persistence. Our own rational natures are without 
explanation except upon the assumption that the world, 
of which we are a part, originated and is grounded in 
reason. This conviction we may formulate as follows : 
We are derived and dependent beings ; we possess in 
our very nature the principles and laws of reason — 
therefore, the cause of our existence must be a rational 
Being, and our reason must be a reflex of the reason 
of this Being. Our rational nature thus compels us 
to assume the existence of God. 

In claiming that the idea of God is a necessary idea 
of reason, it is important to guard the statement from 
misconception. It is not meant that the full Christian 
conception of God is a native possession of reason. 
This more complete idea is complex, and has many 
roots. Nor is it meant that any idea of God at all 
must always be clearly present in the consciousness of 
every man. Such is not the fact. Since the truths 
of reason are not upon the surface, but in the depths 



THE BELIEF W GOD 43 

of the mind, only close and careful reflection can dis- 
cover, analyze, and define them. The view which I 
maintain is, that, as upon condition of the experience 
of the relations of space and time, the ideas of space 
and time arise as necessary ideas in the mind ; so on 
condition of the use of reason and the discovery of 
rational principles and laws, the idea of a supreme and 
universal Reason necessarily arises in the mind as the 
ground of reason in man and the presupposition of all 
knowledge and thought. The form in which this idea 
arises, the clearness with which it is apprehended, and 
the influence which it exerts upon conduct and char- 
acter, depend upon the degree of development to which 
men have attained, and upon their capacity for appre- 
hending the deeper meaning of this idea. 

The process of reflection which I have just described 
is not the cause of our belief in God ; nor is it, ordi- 
narily, its immediate occasion. The belief arises, as we 
have seen, spontaneously in connection with the impres- 
sion made upon the mind by the order and beauty of 
the world, and in connection with those natural feelings 
of dependence and obligation which are the offspring 
of man's religious nature. Reflection simply discovers 
the deeper grounds of the belief in question by explor- 
ing the contents of man's own rational and moral 
nature. It is when reason, by reflection, perceives its 
own ideas, principles, and laws to be universal, that 
it finds itself compelled to assume an adequate cause 
for itself ; that is, a supreme Reason, in which it has 
its origin and ground. Thus the reason of man, reflect- 
ing upon itself, is compelled to assume the existence 
of the absolute Reason ; that is, the existence of God. 



44 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

If the view here stated be correct, it will be evident 
why the existence of God cannot, in the strict sense 
of the word, be demonstrated. That cannot be proved 
by reasoning which is the very ground and presupposi- 
tion of all reasoning and of reason itself. Reason can 
no more prove the existence of God than it can prove 
its own existence, or the existence of the world. That 
a personal God exists is the first truth of reason, because 
it is the most fundamental element of human knowledge ; 
it is the condition and guaranty of all certainty and of 
all thought. The mind cannot rationally conceive of 
any explanation of man's personality except that which 
refers it to a personal intelligence as its source. This 
conviction, therefore, has all the marks of first truths, — 
necessity, universality, and self -evidence. To deny the 
supremacy of reason in the universe, that is, to deny 
the existence of a personal God, is logically to deny the 
grounds of all certain truth, and thus to involve the 
mind in contradiction and absurdity. 

It is not a valid objection to the belief under consid- 
eration that many never see it as necessary. Many 
have never arrived at the conscious acceptance of the 
truths most generally held to be necessary and universal. 
These truths are not " universal " in the sense of be- 
ing universally perceived and acknowledged. They are 
thus perceived and acknowledged only when clear and 
rational reflection discovers them. They are, however, 
universally — though often unconsciously — present in 
reason, which would not be reason without them. Many 
men, the great majority perhaps, have never clearly 
apprehended the principle of causality or that of design, 
or those fundamental distinctions in morals which we 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 45 

justly regard as first truths. They belong to the very 
nature of mind ; but how little self-knowledge the mind 
often has ! This consideration applies with special 
force to the belief in God, which, just because it is the 
deepest certainty of all knowledge and thought, is the 
last to be discovered as such in the process of reflection. 
The existence of God is, therefore, a universal truth 
of reason in the sense that it is tacitly, that is, logically, 
assumed in all rational processes ; that the capacity for 
its development is universal in reason, and that as the 
necessary basis of the universal laws and principles 
of thought, morality, and religion, it cannot even be 
denied without being logically assumed. This, then, 
is our conclusion in regard to the universality of the 
conviction that God exists ; that, whenever the capaci- 
ties of reason are unfolded, and the processes of knowl- 
edge analyzed in their underlying assumptions, the 
mind is led to the conviction that the world must have 
originated in a rational Being, in whom all its order and 
harmony, and especially the laws of thought and 
methods of knowledge, have their basis. 

The considerations which have been advanced serve 
to show what is the real value of the theistic " argu- 
ments." To two of these — the argument from cau- 
sality and that from design — we have already alluded, 
and have seen that they arise from man's contemplation 
of the outer world. The other two historic " proofs " 
of the divine Existence are drawn from the study of 
man's self -consciousness. One of these — the so-called 
"ontological argument" — proceeds from certain ideas 
of the reason, regarded as "necessary," and concludes to 
the existence of a Being corresponding to those ideas ; 



46 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

the other — the "moral argument" — proceeds from 
those feelings of dependence and obligation which are 
natural to man, and from his native yearnings after God, 
and concludes that these presuppose a proper object. 

To these arguments I attach great importance, not, 
however, as syllogisms or "proofs," in the strict sense, 
but as forms in which the invincible convictions of our 
rational and religious nature find expression. The 
effort to put these convictions into a logical form on 
the supposition that the conclusion "God exists" can 
be drawn out of premises more fundamental and ele- 
mentary than this truth, can never succeed, because 
God is the necessary assumption of all truth, and, there- 
fore, there is nothing more fundamental than the fact 
of his existence from which the mind can start. His 
being is actually the " bottom fact " of all thought and 
all argument. All our most fundamental ideas assume 
and presuppose him as their basis ; all our certainties 
and our mental processes rest upon him. He cannot, 
therefore, be found at the end of any process of reason- 
ing, however short or simple, because he is already at 
its begiiining. There is no starting-place for thought 
where he is not. When the eyes of the mind are opened, 
God is there. If he is not seen, it is not because he is 
not present, but because the eyes have not sufficient 
clearness and strength of vision to see him. All our 
"arguments" on the subject are really only forms of 
thought in which we set forth, in as clear light as 
possible, the native certainty, the necessary assump- 
tion of the mind, and show on what conditions of ex- 
perience and reflection this certainty asserts itself in 
consciousness. 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 47 

I have dwelt at some length upon the way in which 
the mind, the. speculative reason, finds its way to its 
own deepest truth and certainty, — the conviction 
of the existence of God. Let me now, more briefly, 
explain what is the gist of the so-called moral argu- 
ment. 

This argument consists in the formulation of those 
facts of man's moral and religious nature which, in 
reality, are most effective in arousing and sustaining 
the belief in God. In the consciousness of most per- 
sons God is a religious rather than a speculative neces- 
sity. They do not reflect with sufficient clearness on 
the nature and assumptions of knowledge to discover 
that God is a necessity for thought. The soul finds 
itself under moral law which seems to be supreme 
and universal, and which it naturally refers to some 
supernatural source. Religious feelings and instincts 
are strong in the human breast. The heart does not 
easily rest in the view that man is a mere product 
of nature, and that this changing and perishing world 
is all that is in store for him. Our nature persists 
in believing in God, and in a spiritual world of 
abiding realities. If it be urged that this is but an 
example of the way in which men commonly believe 
what they want to believe, or feel like believing, I reply 
that it is, at least, significant that this belief does 
meet and satisfy a persistent demand of our nature. 
It will always be hard to convince mankind that there 
is no reality corresponding to the instincts and feel- 
ings of the moral and religious nature. As God can- 
not be proved by argument to those who demand 
demonstration, so can he not be disproved to those 



48 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

who are willing to listen to the logic of their own 
hearts. 1 

It thus appears that the several " arguments " for the 
being of God are really efforts to describe the different 
aspects of God's self-revelation. We could not know 
God if he did not reveal himself to us. We could never 
by searching find him out. When we thoughtfully con- 
template the world of which we are a part — whether 
it be the world without us or the world within — the 
conviction of his existence forces itself upon us. The 
world is an enigma ; God is its solution. No other 
solution is reasonable or possible. Order, law, beauty, 
mind, conscience, will, — these all point unmistakably to 
reason as the cause and ground of the world. These 
most significant facts of our physical and moral system 
can find no explanation except in the existence of God. 2 

God has thus — as the Apostle Paul says — made 
himself manifest to the minds of men. This he has 
done by revealing his wisdom and power in his works, 
and by implanting in the human spirit those instincts 
and convictions which, when not stifled or perverted, 
bear perpetual testimony to the supremacy over us of a 
moral Lawgiver whose vicegerent is conscience. We 
thus see God because he has revealed himself. We 

1 Wer Gott nicht fiihlt in sich und alien Lebenskreisen, 
Dem werdet ihr nicht ihn beweisen mit Beweisen. 

Ruckert. 
2 Why do I believe in God ? I give one great reason — two great reasons 
which are really but one great reason — why I believe in God. I believe in God 
with all my soul, because this world is inexplicable without him and explicable 
with him, and because Jesus Christ believed in him ; and it was Jesus Christ that 
showed me that this world demanded God and was inexplicable without him ; 
that made certain every suspicion and dream that I had had before, and Jesus 
Christ believed in him. — Phillips Brooks. 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 49 

hear his voice because he has spoken to us in nature 
and in the secret chambers of our own hearts. Look 
where we will, he is there, disclosed to our inner vision 
in some aspect of his infinite being. The universe is a 
vast cathedral through whose many windows our souls 
discern God. In any single view we see, perhaps, but 
one of his glorious attributes. Through one window of 
this temple we see God as Creator, through another 
as the supreme Reason, through another as the moral 
Governor ; but through each we see God ; through each 
we discern our Father's face, and discover that we are 
in our Father's house. 

What, now, is the relation of this "natural" revela- 
tion of God, this disclosure of God to all men, to Chris- 
tian revelation ? We are accustomed to say, and rightly, 
that Christ revealed God to men. We have already ob- 
served, however, that our Saviour always assumed, and 
never sought to prove, the existence of God, and always 
assumed that men believed in his existence. He did 
not, therefore, come to earth to teach men that there 
is a God. He came — so far as this aspect of his work 
is concerned — to give to men a full and adequate dis- 
closure of the character of God, to elevate and purify 
their conceptions of God, and to show them in his own 
life and spirit how God felt and thought toward them. 
In the language of the Apostle John, Jesus came to " in- 
terpret " God to men. 1 The basis, however, of this fuller 
revelation which Christ makes, is the universal self- 
revelation of God in his world. Nor are these two rev- 
elations to be conceived of as merely related to each 
other by position. They are organically and essentially 

1 'Emo-oj i^nyfiaaro. John i. 1 8. 



50 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

connected. From the Christian point of view we must 
regard all divine revelation as Christian, in the sense 
that it is mediated through Christ who is the organ of 
God's self-communication. We are thus led to regard 
the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ as 
the crown of all the divine self-disclosures, and to con- 
template nature and the life of man, not as standing in 
violent contrast to all that we find in the gospel, but as 
the spheres in which God has ever been revealing him- 
self invisibly through Christ, and in which he has been 
fore-shadowing, even if dimly, his consummate revela- 
tion in the person and work of Jesus our Lord. We 
are thus able to discern — even though we can but 
imperfectly trace its outline — what a distinguished 
scholar has called "the gospel of creation." 1 

It seems to me to be right and important to magnify 
the significance of Christ and his work, and to make 
them comprehend everything which they can be seen 
legitimately to include. If the work of redemption 
through Christ is the great purpose of God that runs 
through the ages ; if the completion of this work is the 
goal of human history — then surely there can be no 
presumption in claiming that nature itself is framed 
and fitted with reference to this great end, and that all 
human life and history are penetrated by divine influ- 
ences, which are operating in the effort to secure the 
same grand result that the historic mission of our Sav- 
iour contemplates. There may well be something more 
than poetic fancy in Paul's conception of the intense 
and eager interest of nature in the process of man's sal- 
vation (Rom. viii. 19-22). The Christian man is enti- 

1 See Bishop Westcott, The Epistles of St. Jo/in, p. 286, sq. 



THE BELIEF IN GOD 51 

tied to believe that this world and " the fulness thereof " 
is ministrant to God's redeeming love to man. " All 
things " are his who belongs to Christ ; among them 
"the world" and life (i Cor. iii. 21-23). 

That God has filled the world with his presence, that 
he perpetually speaks to man in the beauties and glories 
of nature, and in the still, small voice of conscience, 
is a fundamental truth of the Christian religion. Man's 
whole nature, when he is true to it, cries out for God, 
and finds no repose till it rests secure in the conviction 
of his existence. To bring man to the full fruitage of 
this conviction, to unfold to him its full content and 
significance, and to develop in him the life which corre- 
sponds to it, is certainly one of the principal aims of the 
Christian religion. 



CHAPTER IV 

REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 

If there is a personal God, and if we are akin to him, 
it is reasonable to believe that he should speak to us. 
The great question for philosophy and theology is that 
which exists between Theism and Pantheism, — is God 
personal ? The latter system, in its various forms, so 
identifies God with the world as to shut out the possi- 
bility of his free, conscious action, and, therefore, the 
possibility of revelation. God comes to consciousness 
only in man, who is, therefore, the highest expression of 
the divine. There can thus be no revelation, unless the 
voice of man's own nature, speaking within him, be 
called revelation. 

The theistic conception, on the other hand, is that 
God is independent of the world. He is a self-conscious 
and self-determining Being upon whose will and power 
the world is dependent. He thus transcends nature ; 
and although natural processes and laws are modes of 
his operation, they are not the necessary and only meth- 
ods of his action. He is everywhere in his world, but 
he remains supreme over it. 

Of this conception, revelation is a natural corollary. 
Nor need revelation be limited to those general dis- 
closures of God in nature and conscience which we have 
been considering. That there should be unique and 

52 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 53 

special manifestations of God to men is perfectly con- 
sonant with theistic philosophy. The theist cannot 
deny the possibility of miracles, that is, acts of divine 
power outside the observed order of nature. From his 
standpoint, the only question is, whether the evidence 
of their actual occurrence is sufficient. Nor would mir- 
acles be, in his view, contrary to nature. They are sim- 
ply above or outside nature's ordinary course, so far as 
we know it. They are probably according to nature, 
that is, according to some higher law than those which 
we observe in nature, or according to higher applications 
of observed laws than those which we know. At any 
rate, if God is personal, free, and supreme over the 
world, his action cannot be restricted to the natural 
processes which we observe. If natural law is a method 
of God's free action, he cannot himself be limited and 
fettered by its processes, since they are dependent upon 
his own determination. 

It is a fundamental assumption of the Christian re- 
ligion, that God has made a special revelation of himself 
to man, over and above that which he has made in nature 
and in the constitution of the soul. Of this revelation 
the Bible is a product and record. It was a great his- 
toric process, extending through many centuries. Di- 
vine Providence made the Jewish people the principal 
vehicle of this revelation. The reasons for this choice 
we cannot fully discover, but we may well suppose that 
by their position and native qualities the Jews were es- 
pecially fitted to become the bearers and preservers of 
religious truth. 

The earliest stages of this revelation we can but 
dimly trace in the remote antiquity of an almost pre- 



54 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

historic age. The beginnings of the race, the begin- 
nings of sin, and the beginnings of revelation, are all 
shrouded in impenetrable mystery. The early chapters 
of Genesis present these subjects in a series of pictorial 
legends which are analogous in form to the legends 
of other Oriental peoples touching the same themes. 
These traditions contain certain great religious truths 
which are consonant with the Jewish religion, under 
whose shaping influence they were preserved from age 
to age, and consonant with the teaching of Christianity. 
Among these conceptions we find the idea that God 
from the beginning manifested himself to man, whom 
he had made in his own image. The freedom and 
responsibility of man, who was able to live in fellow- 
ship with God, or to forfeit that fellowship by sin, to- 
gether with the justice and the graciousness of God in 
his treatment of man, are ideas which distinguish these 
traditions, and which are fundamental in the whole bib- 
lical conception of religion. 

It must be candidly admitted that great obscurity 
overspreads the methods of divine revelation in Jewish 
history. This should not be thought strange. The his- 
tory of the Jews is the history of an ancient Oriental 
people whose literature — of which the Old Testament 
is a part — gives rise to many perplexing literary and 
archaeological problems. The process of divine revela- 
tion which the Old Testament books describe as con- 
tinually going forward, may best be studied at the points 
at which its method and meaning become clearest. To 
my mind, the most significant phenomenon in Jewish 
religious history is prophecy. Nothing else so well il- 
lustrates and justifies the idea that the Jewish, people 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 55 

were the vehicle of a unique divine revelation. Prophecy 
discovers to us the deeper meaning of Jewish history, 
and portrays the divinely appointed destiny which the 
nation was to fulfil among the peoples of the world. 

Hebrew prophecy has its central point of significance 
in the great conception that the Jewish religious system 
was simply a means of preparing for a greater dispen- 
sation — the era of the Messiah. Judaism, in its high- 
est moments of foresight and inspiration, is conscious 
of its own temporary and preparatory character. The 
cry of the Hebrew prophet is, " Prepare for something 
new; expect a larger revelation of God." To me, one 
of the most impressive evidences of a divine factor in 
Jewish history is found in this profound consciousness 
in the heart of the nation that its glory was to be that 
of ushering in the surpassing glory of another system 
which should fulfil, and thus supplant it. It is remark- 
able that a religion should prophesy its own abrogation. 
Prophecy, therefore, supplies the most convincing evi- 
dence of God's revealing plan and purpose in Jewish 
history. It is during the great prophetic period that 
the stream of divine revelation runs clearest ; and, as we 
contemplate it there, we are encouraged to believe that 
it is really the same current which we elsewhere observe 
in places where its waters have been darkened by draw- 
ing into them more of the soil of human ignorance and 
misconception through which they have passed. 

The significance of Hebrew prophecy and of the 
typology of the Old Testament is often viewed quite 
too narrowly. Prophecy is much more than a series of 
specific predictions for which we are to seek corre- 
sponding events in the life of Jesus, or in Christian 



56 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

history. The typology of Judaism is something more 
than a series of symbolic objects and acts. The whole 
Old Testament history, the whole religious life of the 
nation, was prophetic. The Jewish people were "an 
incarnate hope." Their religious history was domi- 
nated by a great ideal. Their golden age was always in 
the future, not in the past. The prophetic significance 
of Judaism is to be found, primarily, in the great 
conceptions of the Messiah and of his kingdom, which 
swayed the heart of the nation. The words of Jere- 
miah sound the keynote of Israel's history : " Behold, 
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a 
new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the 
house of Judah : not according to the covenant that I 
made with their fathers " (Jer. xxxi. 31, 32) ; and the New 
Testament, quoting this passage as expressing the deep- 
est meaning of Judaism, takes up the refrain : " In that 
he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. 
But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh 
unto vanishing away " (Heb. viii. 13). 

Such, in briefest outline, is the significance of Israel's 
history. When the fullest allowance is made for all the 
difficulties and obscurities which surround its begin- 
nings and the earlier stages of its development, its main 
features stand out in clear relief, bearing the marks of a 
divine peculiarity. The Jews are, in a special sense, 
the people of revelation. " The (Messianic) salvation 
is from the Jews." 1 A special purpose of God runs 
through their history. They are a chosen instrument 
of Providence in preparing the way for Christianity, the 
universal religion. This conviction is strongly ex- 

1 'H owTrjpia i< tS>v 'loviaiuv eoriv. John iv. 22. 






REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 57 

pressed by one of the greatest modern students of 
their history, Heinrich Ewald, who says, "The his- 
tory of this ancient people is in reality the history of 
the growth of true religion, rising through all stages 
to perfection, pressing on through all conflicts to the 
highest victory, and finally revealing itself in full glory 
and power, in order to spread irresistibly from this cen- 
tre, never again to be lost, but to become the eternal 
possession and blessing of all nations." 1 

But the revelation whose salient features we are de- 
scribing culminates in Christ. He is the central figure 
in the whole providential history which the Bible re- 
cords, and all its parts are to be read in the light of his 
life and person. To him the religious hopes of Israel 
looked forward, and in him centred all the rays of 
divine light and truth which in all the ages God had 
been sending down into the life of mankind. It is 
Christ who, above all, gives to the Bible its unique 
character, its divine and permanent singularity. The 
Bible is differenced from all other literatures because 
Christ, its all-important personality, is differenced from 
other men. What makes biblical literature, and the 
history which it traces, powerful and precious for the 
Christian heart is mainly this, that it enshrines Christ, 
its chief treasure, who is the explanation of it all, and 
the divine secret of its power. There are many forms 
and methods of divine revelation, but the highest and 
most perfect form is that which we behold in Christ. 
As if God has exhausted all other possibilities of revela- 
tion, he at last makes a personal revelation. He comes 
to men in a perfect life, full of humanity, full of divin- 

1 History of Israel, i. 5. 



58 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

ity, which is able at once to reveal God to man, and 
to reveal man to himself. Thus revelation is, in its 
highest form, personal. Revelation by miracle, by com- 
mandment, by prediction, are all secondary and subor- 
dinate to revelation through a personality which both 
interprets God to man and discloses to man his own 
true and possible sonship to God. 

We must reserve to a later stage of our studies the 
effort to estimate the significance for thought and life 
of the personality of Christ. It is sufficient for our 
present purpose to point out the central place which 
he holds in that course of divine revelation which the 
Bible records and reflects. It has long seemed to me 
that this conception of Christ's relation to the Bible 
gives the most practical and helpful view of the 
nature and value of the book. Amid all the contro- 
versies about the Bible, and the attacks upon it, the 
Christian heart may rest secure in this conviction that 
the unique character and value of the Bible are as secure 
as are the unique character and significance of the per- 
son of Jesus Christ. The Bible may best be regarded 
as a group of books which have grown up around 
Christ, standing, some in a more, some in a less, direct 
relation to him. Speaking generally, the Old Testa- 
ment is prophetically, and more distantly, related to his 
historic appearance ; the New Testament deals almost 
entirely with that appearance and its significance. 
Looking at the Old Testament alone, we perceive that 
the ritual system, which is the main subject of the 
Pentateuch, embodies in symbolic form certain truths 
concerning sin, guilt, and the divine grace and for- 
giveness, which come to their fullest revelation in the 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 59 

person and work of Christ. The prophetic writings 
are even more directly related to Christ, because, while 
they contain much that concerns their own time, their 
great burden is the hope of a coming Deliverer. In so 
far as the historical books of the Old Testament trace 
the career of the Jewish people, in whose life and 
history God was preparing the way for the Redeemer's 
coming, they, too, have a Messianic import, and make 
their contribution to our understanding of the "in- 
creasing purpose " which culminated in the incarnation. 
There still remain the Psalms and the so-called "wis- 
dom-books," such as Job and Proverbs. The relation 
of the former to Christ is partly seen in their prophetic 
Messianic contents, partly in their reflection of the 
deep piety of the noblest spirits in Israel, which formed 
the fruitful soil in which the seed of the gospel was to 
be planted. The wisdom-books are unquestionably 
more remote from the central figure of revelation ; yet 
they, too, by their representations of the struggles of 
the mind, during the earlier stages of revelation, after 
divine light and truth, add something to our knowledge 
of that movement of thought and that course of events 
in Israel's history, both of which culminate in Christ, 
" the wisdom of God and the power of God." 

It is obvious to every reader that the various books 
of the New Testament — Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and 
Apocalypse — concern themselves chiefly with the 
person of Christ, and the significance of his appearance 
in history. These books are the original documents — 
so far as these have been preserved to us — which 
relate to the life and work of Jesus. "The New 
Testament," says Rothe, "is the photograph which 



60 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

the historical Christ mirrored directly upon the con- 
sciousness of those who surrounded him." How obvi- 
ous it is, then, that the significance and value of the 
books which compose it must be altogether unique. 
They are the primary source of our knowledge concern- 
ing Christ. To ascertain what the Christian religion 
is, in its spirit and in its great central truths, we must 
go to the New Testament. This group of books con- 
tains what we want to know and need to know concern- 
ing Christ. No other books do, except by derivation 
from these. Here are four sketches, at once similar in 
the total picture which they give, and different in view- 
point and color, of his person, teaching, and deeds. 
There is one book — the Acts — which narrates the 
early efforts and successes of his first disciples in 
teaching his doctrines and in organizing those who 
adopted them into societies for their preservation and 
further propagation. Here are writings by his apostles, 
men who stood closest to his person, and who had 
imbibed his teaching and spirit. These writings are 
mainly in the form of letters, and were evidently com- 
posed without thought, on the part of their authors, of 
their permanent preservation. But they are not, on 
this account, of less importance and value. They 
include epistles by Peter and John, and by James, 
believed by some to have been one of the twelve, by 
others a brother of Jesus. The New Testament prom- 
inently includes writings by certain companions of the 
apostles, who, to make no further claim, must have had 
the best of advantages for knowing the facts of our 
Lord's life, and the generally received import of his 
work. The most important example under this head 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 61 

is Paul, who always claimed to be an apostle by a 
special divine call, though not one of the original 
twelve. He was, however, acquainted with some of 
the primitive apostles, and not long after his con- 
version had spent two weeks in company with Peter 
(Gal. i. 1 8). 

The view which I wish to urge is, that these un- 
deniable historical facts give unique significance and 
value to our New Testament books. In the New 
Testament history we are treading on ground which 
has been hallowed by the footsteps of the Son of God. 
Is not this fact sufficient to place those books for all 
time in a peerless position among the literatures of the 
world ? 

It is necessary to say something at this point on the 
much disputed subject of the inspiration of the biblical 
books. This question relates to the kind and degree 
of divine influence which was exerted upon the biblical 
authors in the composition of their various writings. 
Were they the passive instruments of the divine Spirit, 
mere amanuenses or " sacred penmen," so that God 
himself may be said to be the author of the Bible ? If, 
on the contrary, they retained their individuality in 
writing, what were the limits which were set upon their 
liberty in expressing religious ideas or in writing his- 
tory ? Did God secure through them the use of certain 
words, that is, was their inspiration verbal ? Or did he 
only secure the presentation, in their own freely chosen 
forms of thought and speech, of certain facts or truths ; 
that is, was their inspiration dynamic or conceptual ? 
Were all the biblical writers equally inspired ? If not, 
how are the degrees of their inspiration to be dis- 



62 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tinguished ? Were the men of the Bible differently 
inspired for purposes of writing than for purposes of 
teaching and leadership ? Did their inspiration guar- 
antee infallibility in their statements and teachings ? and 
if so, does this infallibility concern only religious truth, 
or does it extend to their statements and teachings 
upon every subject upon which they touch ? Such are 
some of the problems with which many theologians in 
our time are grappling, and over which many thoughtful 
Christians are anxious and perplexed. 

I venture the opinion that theologians, in their efforts 
to defend the Bible, have commonly given to these 
questions a far greater prominence and importance 
than legitimately belong to them. The great question 
for the apologist is not the question of inspiration, but 
the question of revelation. In comparison with the 
former, this latter question is far more wide-reaching 
and fundamental. If the reality of revelation can be 
defended and maintained, it is comparatively unimpor- 
tant to define the kind or degree of superintendence 
which God has exercised over the composition of those 
books which are its record and product. Inspiration as 
related to the biblical books is, at most, only an item 
in the process of preserving the history of revelation. 
If it is possible to define its nature and limits, it is w- 
^sirable to do so ; but it is far less important than it 
, be able to show that the historical process which thv 
Bible enables us to trace is such as to justify the claim 
that it involves a unique revelation of God. 

Moreover, the Bible cannot be successfully defended 
by arguing its inspiration. The Bible's primary claim 
for itself is not the claim of inspiration, but the claim 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 63 

of historicity. If the substantial historical trustworthi- 
ness of the Bible can be maintained, it is not greatly in 
need of any further defence. If that trustworthiness 
cannot be maintained, much less can the defence of its 
inspiration prove successful. The inspiration of the 
Bible — in whatever sense it is asserted — must be 
upheld upon the basis of its historicity. To seek to 
defend the historical trustworthiness of the Bible on 
the basis of some doctrine of its inspiration, is to try 
to make a pyramid stand on its apex. The history of 
theology supplies no more conspicuous a case of mis- 
placed emphasis than is seen in the effort to defend the 
Bible by maintaining some theory of its inspiration. If 
the history which it records does not justify the claim 
that it enshrines a unique revelation of God, it will be 
in vain to support that claim by asserting that God 
superintended the writing of its books. 

The doctrine of inspiration must always, in the na- 
ture of the case, have the character and limitations of 
a theory. The historical facts which the Bible records 
are attested in all the ways in which other facts are 
attested. In starting from these in the maintenance of 
the reality of divine revelation, we are on solid ground. 
We hold, for example, that the Gospels can stand as 
history, and that the facts of Christ's person and work 
require the supposition of his unique character and 
divine mission. But what if we must prove the inspira- 
tion of the Gospels before we can maintain the facts 
which they record ? How shall we do it ? Their au- 
thors do not assert that they were divinely helped to 
compose them. We shall end, on this procedure, by 
pivoting our history upon a theory, instead of finding a 



t)4 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

secure historical basis for our estimate of the permanent 
religious value of the writings in question. 

Christianity is an historical religion ; that is, a religion 
of facts, — a religion that has entered the world, and 
spread itself among men by a long series of historical 
events. The Bible contains, so far as we have any means 
of judging, the most important literature which grew up 
in connection with this great historic process of revela- 
tion. It is not itself the revelation ; it is rather a product 
of the revelation. It is a partial but sufficient record of 
this signal movement of God in history, enabling us 
to perceive its most important stages and objects, and to 
interpret its chief significance. The Bible is, therefore, 
a vehicle of paramount importance for communicating 
to us a knowledge of that great and special process of 
divine revelation which culminated in Christ. What- 
ever theory be held as to the inspiration of its books, 
the Bible must ever hold an absolutely unique place in 
the thoughts and reverence of all who accept the truth 
of the main essential facts which it records. The Bible 
will ever stand high above all other books for all in 
whose hearts Christ stands high above all other charac- 
ters in history. 

In endeavoring to form a just and intelligent opinion 
on the subject of inspiration, it is important to remem- 
ber that a theory, in order to be tenable, must be built 
up by an induction of all the ascertainable facts which 
the Bible presents, and must, of course, accord with 
those facts. If it is clear, for example, that there are 
demonstrable inaccuracies and discrepancies in Scrip- 
ture, then no theory which asserts a formal infallibility 
of the biblical books concerning all matters upon which 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 65 

they touch, can be correct. If it be true, as matter of 
fact, that there is a marked advance in ethical and 
spiritual truth in the later biblical books as compared 
with the earlier, then no theory which affirms the equal 
inspiration of all the Scripture writers can be tenable. 
The science of biblical criticism compels us to test all 
theories by a careful examination of the facts in the 
case, so far as they can be ascertained. An a priori 
theory as to what the Bible is, or as to the way in which 
its books must have been composed, fares no better at 
the hands of biblical science than do a priori theories in 
other realms at the hands of other sciences with whose 
subject-matter they undertake to deal. Such theories 
always lay great stress upon the perilous consequences 
of their rejection. But to this mode of argument it is 
to be answered, first, that nothing is more perilous in 
matters of religious thought and opinion than conflict 
with, well-ascertained facts ; and, further, that theories 
are legitimately established, not by appeal to the fear of 
consequences, but by appeal to the grounds on which 
they can be shown to rest. 1 

For myself, I greatly distrust the success of all ef- 
forts to frame an adequate theory of inspiration. The 
ways of the Spirit are various and inscrutable, and do 
not yield themselves to human definition. The Bible 
shares in the effects of that mighty working of God in 

1 Some theologians begin with the a priori principle that the Bible must be 
absolutely inerrant, and boldly assert that this is the case, not only in matters 
which pertain to the great purpose, but in all matters whatsoever. But if the 
facts show that this was not the case, which honors God the most, to accept his 
method of making a Bible as the best, or to insist that he followed the method 
which we think best ? ... It seems a very good and pious thing to insist that 
the Bible is absolutely without error. But nothing is good or pious that is con- 
trary to facts. — Stearns, Present Day Theology, p. 105. 



66 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

revelation which gave it birth. But no description of 
the amount and method of the divine influence in its 
production can be given which will be applicable to all 
its parts and to all its writers. Who shall describe in 
one breath the inspiration of the author of Ecclesiastes 
and that of the Apostle John ? What formula descrip- 
tive of inspiration would be equally applicable to Solo- 
man's Song and to the Epistles of Paul ? The effort to 
construct such formulas is, as I have already intimated, 
largely the result of a misplaced emphasis. The stress 
of our thought should be laid upon forming as clear and 
correct a conception as possible of the redemptive 
history in which God's revelation primarily consists. 
Inspiration pertains to the men who were, in various 
ways, the divinely chosen media of that revelation. It 
is best conceived of as the influence and leadership of 
God revealing himself in the actual history and life 
of men, rather than as a mere superintendence of the 
writing of books. Any person who has a fairly clear 
conception of revelation as an historical process, need 
have little trouble over this question of the inspiration 
of the biblical books. He rests assured that the great 
men of the Bible — men like Moses, Isaiah, John, and 
Paul — have been, next to the Son of man himself, the 
chief agents of divine Providence in acquainting the 
world with God. 

It is not infrequently urged in favor of the theory of 
verbal inspiration, which declares the Bible to be perfect 
and infallible in all its parts, that it is the easiest to 
define and to entertain. If this statement be granted, 
it may be doubted whether the alleged advantage is 
a real one. The simplest and most easily conceivable 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 67 

astronomy is that which described the sky as a solid 
floor, and the stars as holes through which the light 
beyond shone through. This theory is, indeed, easy, 
unless one happens to study the phenomena of the 
heavens. The theory of the verbal and equal inspira- 
tion of the biblical writers is no easier when the phe- 
nomena of the Bible are candidly investigated. It is 
true that the theory in question requires little discrim- 
ination ; it is sweeping, wholesale, and, therefore, sim- 
ple. Even if the making of distinctions — which it is 
often hard, sometimes impossible, satisfactorily to make 
— were one from which the candid Christian scholar 
could regard himself as absolved, the simplicity of this 
theory could not recommend it. In fact, it breaks 
down from sheer weight of simplicity ; it is so much 
more simple than are the facts which it would explain. 

It is common to suppose that the interests of biblical 
religion are at present especially imperilled by the decay 
of what are called "strict" or "high" theories of the 
inspiration of the biblical writings. It does not seem 
to me that this is the point at which our faith is threat- 
ened. The peril is that men should come to doubt the 
reality of revelation itself, should grow uncertain of 
God, and should degrade the person and work of Christ. 
Men will never fail in sufficient appreciation of the 
Bible so long as they believe in revelation and in Christ. 
If they doubt revelation and depreciate Christ, it is 
vain to talk to them of the inspiration of the Bible. 
If they accept the truth of revelation and the su- 
preme significance of Christ, their conception of the 
Bible will take care of itself. Our estimate of Christ 
is absolutely primary in our religion. A man who be- 



68 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

lieves that the Bible gives us a trustworthy historical 
picture of him, and of his significance, and who seeks 
to live according to that belief, holds what is most es- 
sential respecting the Bible, and may permit himself the 
largest liberty in the investigation of the various critical 
and historical questions which arise in connection with 
its study. He whose faith is pivoted on some theory 
of the Bible's inspiration, stands on precarious ground, 
especially if it be a theory which all investigation tends 
more and more to disprove. He whose faith is centred 
in Christ, and in the historical action of God in prepar- 
ing for him and his work, stands on a secure, immov- 
able foundation, since he rests in no theoretic wisdom 
of man, but in the power of God. 1 

If, in what I am here saying, I seem to underestimate 
the importance of a doctrine of inspiration, it is only 
because I would emphasize the relatively greater impor- 
tance of the doctrine of revelation. The Bible is in- 
spired in the sense that its authors were men who, in 
diverse ways and degrees, shared in that large enlight- 
enment which was a great factor in the work of revela- 
tion. The literary product of this process of revelation 
bears traces of divine influence, uplift, and guidance, the 
same in kind as does the actual providential history 
which was, as it were, the channel of revelation. The 
Bible is sacred literature in the same sense in which 



l All the New Testament is an earthen vessel containing a treasure of divine 
greatness and -power. It is a fatal mistake to imagine that the vessel itself is 
the treasure. The treasure of the Gospels is the spirit of Christ. If the vessels 
are earthen, it is only that the treasure may the more surely be known to be of 
God. The workmanship of these pictures of Christ is not so perfect that there 
can be any doubt whence comes the superhuman beauty and glory of the face. 
— Prof. Frank C Porter, in The Congregationalist, Sept. 20, 1894. 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 69 

Jewish history and church history in the apostolic age 
are sacred history. 

In summing up these suggestions, I should say that 
the conception of the inspiration of the Bible should be 
held in relation to its essential and spiritual contents, 
and not in relation to its form or letter. Inspiration 
does not terminate upon the production of formally in- 
fallible records, but upon the furnishing of men for the 
communication of religious truth. It is involved in this 
conception that inspiration is, in strict propriety, ap- 
plicable only to men, and not to books. It is applicable 
to the latter only in a secondary and derivative sense. 
No doubt the enlightenment of the mind and the eleva- 
tion of the spirit are reflected in what one writes, but 
this reflection is not restricted to the act of writing. 
Inspiration includes equipment for teaching, leadership, 
and other functions, as well as for the writing of books. 
It also follows that inspiration cannot be rigidly limited 
— except by arbitrary definition — to those who wrote 
some part of our canonical books. There is no reason 
to doubt that there were prophets as truly and fully in- 
spired as were those whose writings we have, and that 
other apostles, who have not contributed to our canon, 
shared as richly in the promised gifts of the Spirit as 
did those whose epistles we possess. 

Conceding and even urging, as I do, that no sufficient 
definition of God's action and influence in securing the 
composition of the Bible can be given, I venture to pre- 
sent the following statement as embodying a practical, 
working conception of the subject : Inspiration is a name 
for that guiding and enlightening influence of the divine 
Spirit upon the biblical writers, which enabled them, 



70 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

in different degrees of fulness and in varying forms, 
to present in their writings, narratives, examples, and 
interpretations of the history and contents of the di- 
vine self-revelation, such as, when taken together and 
rightly interpreted, constitute an adequate and authori- 
tative guide to religious faith and conduct. 



CHAPTER V 

THE CHARACTER OF GOD 

We have seen that we can know something of God 
from that general revelation which he makes of his 
power, wisdom, and goodness in nature and in con- 
science. But we need to know more of him than we 
learn from this disclosure. Nothing is more important 
in religious thought and life than a true conception 
of the character of God. No idea is so powerful and 
wide-reaching in its effects as the idea which we cherish 
concerning him. The difference between the gross 
rites and absurd superstitions of heathenism and the 
highest forms of religious worship and service is, at 
bottom, a difference in the idea of God. There is noth- 
ing upon which our whole conception of the world and 
of life so much depends as upon the idea of the charac- 
ter of God which we cherish. Little as we may think 
of it, every day is bitter or hopeful, every duty com- 
monplace or inspiring, every sacrifice irksome or joy- 
ous — in short, every day's work and experience full of 
low and selfish meanings, or of noble and divine mean- 
ings, according to the practical thought of God and of 
our relations to him which we are carrying about with 
us day by day. It will not seem true at first thought 
that our daily life has so deep a root ; but the more we 
reflect upon it, the more evident, I believe, it will appear. 

71 



72 DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 

In like manner the different religious opinions of 
men, and their different modes of worship, are chiefly 
accounted for by their different conceptions of the 
character of God. It was, for example, a prevalent 
idea in the early church that God had a special satis- 
faction in the suffering of men. Hence, self-denial for 
its own sake and self-inflicted tortures were rigidly 
practised. All enjoyment was sin. Men wore gar- 
ments of coarse hair, stood on pillars in all weathers, 
starved themselves, and practised flagellation, thinking 
they were doing God's service. Out of this idea grew 
the hermit and monastic life, and the vows of poverty 
and celibacy. In the same line are descended many 
of the rigors of our earlier Protestantism — tirades on 
harmless enjoyments, unwarmed and uninviting places 
of worship, and bald and monotonous forms of religious 
service. 

Now, if we, unlike the ascetics of earlier ages, believe 
that God made this world for a happy home, and not 
for a gloomy prison ; if we believe that he meant that 
our lives should be bright and cheerful, and that he 
gave us the capacity for enjoyment to use in all legiti- 
mate and harmless ways ; if we believe that God would 
rather see us hopeful than despairing, and that no part 
of our nature is to be despised or tortured, but that all 
our faculties are to be developed harmoniously and sub- 
jected to the sceptre of reason and love — it is simply 
because we have entered into the possession and 
application of a different thought of God from that 
which was dominant in early and mediaeval Christianity. 
The word life means to us what the word God means 
to us. 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 73 

And the same is true of the religious opinions of 
men. The strifes of sect and the disputes of theologi- 
cal parties have been mainly due, in their last analysis, 
to different notions of God. The conflicting theological 
opinions of our own time are mainly traceable to this 
root. These controversies, however, are too near to 
permit us always to discern clearly their real basis and 
significance. But we discover the truth of the princi- 
ple in question very clearly if we look into the past. 
Whenever in the history of the church we find ideas 
and practices which now seem to us to be gross exag- 
gerations and perversions of the truth, we can com- 
monly trace them to misconceptions of the divine 
nature. A modern theologian has justly said that 
" most, if not all, the errors in divinity have arisen 
from false or confused notions of the divine charac- 
ter." * If, then, the idea of God bears so vital a rela- 
tion to all religious thought and life, how important 
it is that we should seek to attain the highest possible 
conception of his nature. To know all that we can 
learn about God is an imperative need of our religious 
life. There are many problems of theology which we 
should like to solve, whose solution we can await with- 
out detriment to our spiritual development, and without 
disaster to our religious faith. But we must be very 
sure of God, sure what kind of a Being he is in his 
feeling and disposition toward us, if our hearts are to 
rest in confidence and in peace. " The question of 
God's moral character is one which we cannot for a 
day leave unanswered. The sweetest sleep is embit- 
tered if we know not what is the nature of the God 

1 Stearns, Present Day Theology, p. 209. 



74 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

who rules us. Death is a terror if we are ignorant 
of the God into whose presence we are to be ushered." 1 

For the fullest disclosure of the character of God we 
must turn to the teaching and life of Christ. We find 
that the word by which he was wont to speak of God 
was the term " Father." That word, therefore, may 
justly be regarded as expressing, better than any other, 
our Saviour's conception and revelation of the divine 
character. And this truth, that God is our Father, is 
the truth which, above all others, we need to know. 
The eager request of Philip : " Lord, show us the 
Father, and it sufficeth us " (John xiv. 8), was born of 
the deepest need and longing of the human heart. 
When a child is lost, its bitterest cry is for its father 
or mother. Childhood's natural sense of dependence, 
the filial yearning for parental care, is one of those 
divinely given traits of nature in which we must all 
become as little children if we would enter into the 
kingdom of God. 

No revelation of God can suffice us except the reve- 
lation of him as Father. It is not enough for us to 
know that he created us, and fashioned this great sys- 
tem of which we are a part. We may go out at night 
under the soft light of the stars, and reflect on the 
great and wise Being who made and sustains this won- 
derful world of order and beauty ; but what avails all 
this if he does not care for us ; if he will in nc way 
reach down to guide and help us ; if he does not hear 
us when we speak to him ? 

Fatherhood is much more than creatorship. God's 
Fatherhood implies a native kinship, on our part, to 

l Stearns, op. cit., p. 220. 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 75 

him ; some likeness of our nature to his own which 
makes us capable of fellowship with him. There is no 
such relation of God to the physical world as is ex- 
pressed by the term " fatherhood." Love is an essen- 
tial constituent of this fatherhood, and God does not 
make the orders of creation beneath man the objects 
of his love. Fatherhood and love are terms which ex- 
press relations between God and beings kindred in 
spirit with himself. 

A question concerning which there is a wide prac- 
tical difference among teachers of religion is the ques- 
tion whether God is the Father of all men, or only of 
those who are obedient to his will. The question is 
one in regard to which clear discrimination is neces- 
sary, since it is one which affects, in no small degree, 
the conception of the divine character. The question 
may be put from the other side, thus : " Are all men 
sons of God, or are only those such who are believing 
and obedient ? " For answer recourse must be had 
to the teaching of Christ. We should both consult 
specific expressions which bear upon the question, and 
consider the general spirit of his life and teaching. 
The conclusion to which such an examination will lead 
may be correctly stated, I think, in this paradoxical 
form : God is the Father of all men, but men become 
sons of God. Let us consider each part of this appar- 
ently contradictory proposition. 

That Jesus conceives of God as the Father of all 
men is evident from the way in which he so often 
speaks of God as " the Father," without any definition 
or limitation, and especially from that epitome of the 
gospel, the parable of the Prodigal Son, which depicts 



76 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

the fatherly love of God in its tenderness and compas- 
sion for the disobedient and undeserving. .The state- 
ment, then, that God is the Father of all men, means 
that God is always good and gracious ; that he is al- 
ways, if we may so speak, what he ought to be ; that 
whatever men may be, he is always true to his own 
essential benevolence. Men are ideally, that is, ac- 
cording to the true divine idea of humanity, sons of 
God ; but by reason of sin they are not actually what 
they are ideally and in possibility. We accordingly 
find that Jesus does not speak of sinful men as sons 
of God. The prodigal represents himself as no more 
worthy, by reason of his disobedience, to bear the 
name sou. In the true moral sense of that term he has 
forfeited sonship. The natural relation to his father, 
and the father's gracious disposition and character, re- 
main. The fatherhood is not impaired, although it is 
aggrieved and wounded ; it is the sonship which is 
impaired, and needs to be restored. In other words, 
Jesus reserved the term son to express the true moral 
relation of man to God in obedience and love. Son- 
ship meant for him something more than creaturehood. 
Hence he taught men to love even enemies, that they 
might be — as they would not otherwise — the sons 
of their Father who is in heaven (Matt. v. 44, 45) ; that 
is, that they might be like God in the spirit of their 
action. In like manner John teaches that men be- 
come sons of God by a spiritual renewal or transfor- 
mation. " As many as received him [Christ], to them 
gave he the right to beco7ne children of God, even to 
them that' believe on his name" (John i. 12). Here 
men are said to become, on certain conditions, children 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 77 

of God — a statement which clearly implies that, in the 
sense in which the terms are used, they were not such 
before. To the same purport is the apostle's language 
in I John iii. I, where he is addressing his fellow-Chris- 
tians : " Behold, what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of 
God : and such we are." 

It does not, however, follow, from what has been 
said, that there is no true sense in which all men 
may be spoken of as sons of God. In the special 
ethical sense in which Jesus was wont to use the term, 
all men are not children of God ; they are such, how- 
ever, in the sense that they are made in God's image, 
and that they are the objects of his care and love. Let 
us now observe the importance and bearing in religious 
thought of these discriminations. 

On the one hand, the truth of God's universal 
Fatherhood must not be restricted. To do this would 
involve a limitation of the love and saving mercy of 
God. To such consequences this restriction has always 
led in theology. The doctrine that God from eternity 
chose out from the mass of mankind a certain definite 
number whom he would save, and consigned the rest 
to perdition, with its corollary that the work of Christ 
was intended to provide salvation only for this limited 
number, is an example of the consequences which flow 
from the limitation of God's fatherly love. On the 
other hand, the assertion of God's universal Fatherhood 
easily leads to what is, in one sense, its correlate, the 
universal sonship of all men to God. If, now, this 
statement is made and understood, not merely in the 
general sense in which it is true, but with the special 



78 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

and higher meaning in the word sonship which Jesus 
attached to it, it follows that the impairment of man's 
normal relation to God by sin, and the necessity of his 
repentance and spiritual renewal, will be overlooked. 
Thus we see that, on the one side, the narrowness of 
many earlier forms of theological thought can be traced 
to a limitation of the divine Fatherhood ; while, on the 
other, the laxness of much modern teaching is seen to 
spring from the affirmation of man's sonship to God 
in a sense in which Jesus never affirmed it — a sense in 
which he always made it dependent upon repentance, 
faith, and obedience. 

The true procedure in dealing with the conceptions 
under review is to magnify to the utmost, on the one 
hand, the fatherly love and compassion of God. His 
benevolence is universal, unbounded. He loves all 
men, and wishes all to be saved, and has always 
done all that wisdom and love could do to secure this 
result. On the other hand, we must fully recognize 
the sinfulness and guilt of man. He is not naturally 
what he ought to be ; he does not fill out the idea 
of true, ethical sonship of God. In actual fact, his 
sonship is not the perfect correlate to God's Father- 
hood. We can, therefore, affirm it only in a qualified 
sense, and must accordingly emphasize the necessity of 
that spiritual renewal which the Bible calls the birth 
from above. These views of God's Fatherhood and 
of man's sonship are rightly adjusted by holding that 
God's mercy is conditioned, but never limited. He is 
always ready, and more than ready, to forgive ; but, in 
the nature of the case, his forgiveness is conditioned 
upon repentance. His fatherly compassion is denied 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 79 

to none ; it is unlimited ; but it can only establish har- 
mony and fellowship where there exists, on the part 
of the creature, the reciprocal disposition of obedience 
and love. Thus the truth of our proposition appears, 
that God is the Father of all men. He is never actually 
anything less than what he is ideally ; men, on the 
other hand, become sons of God by faith and obedi- 
ence, because they are not, apart from moral renewal, 
what they ought to be. This is but to say that the 
restoration of the normal relation between man and 
God must be from man's side, since it is on his side 
alone that the fellowship is impaired. 

There are two other statements respecting the char- 
acter of God which are very fundamental in Christian 
teaching. One of these is, that God is righteous or 
holy ; the other, that God is love. These conceptions 
we can best consider together, since, in our view, they 
are very essentially related. 

We find that in the Old Testament the righteousness 
of God is more emphasized than his love, while in the 
New Testament the reverse is the case. This is what 
we should expect in view of the progressive character 
of revelation. The truth that God is love involves a 
more comprehensive and complete conception of his 
character than does the truth that he is righteous or 
holy. The doctrine of God's holiness, in the Old Tes- 
tament, emphasizes the idea of his separateness from 
all impurity and wrong. His holiness is his moral ex- 
altation. Looked at on its more positive side, it is 
the self-affirming, self-respecting quality of God's nature. 
It involves his repudiation of all sin as being contrary 
to his own perfect will and character. Righteousness 



80 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

emphasizes the retributive element of God's being which 
leads him to condemn and punish sin. It is obvious 
that the idea of righteousness is absolutely fundamental 
in the Christian conception of God. 

The word love, as a name for the moral character of 
God, suggests, at first thought, the qualities of mercy 
and compassion. These are the attributes which are 
the complement of righteousness. But love and right- 
eousness must not be thought of as contrary or anti- 
thetic. " God is love," says the Apostle John (i John iv. 
8, 1 6). Love is a name for his moral nature, and not 
merely for one aspect of it. Love must therefore in- 
clude the holiness as well as the benevolence of God. 
This truth can be justly emphasized by saying that God 
is holy love. Righteousness is the self-respect of love ; 
benevolence is its self-communication in blessing. No 
conception of God's nature as love is adequate which 
does not contain both of these elements. Mere good 
nature, which should take no account of righteousness, 
would not be love. Mere naked justice, which should 
deal with men without forbearance or compassion, would 
be no adequate definition of the character of God as 
Christ reveals him. God is both just and good, and 
neither his justice nor his goodness must be emphasized 
to the neglect of the other. Both these elements must 
be combined in the conception of God as self-imparting 
holiness or as holy love. 

These considerations respecting our conception of 
the character of God are of the first importance in 
religion and theology. The justice of God has often 
been made the fundamental attribute of his nature in 
such a sense as entirely to subordinate love. It has 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 81 

been widely held, for example, that justice is an at- 
tribute which God must always exercise, while love 
is a quality which it is optional with him to exercise 
or not. It is said that God must be righteous, but 
that he may be benevolent and merciful, or not, as he 
chooses. According to this theology, God must punish 
sin. It would seem to follow that he cannot forgive it, 
and this theory admits that he cannot forgive it without 
first punishing it. This he does representatively in the 
penal sufferings which he lays upon his Son, Jesus 
Christ. It will be seen that this type of theologi- 
cal reasoning completely subordinates love to justice. 
Strict, absolute justice must be done, and mercy can 
have no place until it is done. The just penalty of the 
world's sin having been vicariously endured by Christ, 
it is possible for God to exercise that benevolence, 
which, however, he might have refrained from exercis- 
ing without the impairment of his moral perfection. 

It will thus be seen that this view really makes per- 
fection of character to consist in strict justice alone. 
According to its premises, God might refrain from 
being merciful altogether and still be as perfect as he 
now is. Mercy cannot, therefore, be an essential quality 
in the character of God. The practical consequences 
in religious thought of this conception of the nature of 
God have been very marked. The whole view of salva- 
tion and of life must be strongly colored by such a 
theory. It easily leads to the idea that God is hard 
and cruel, that the salvation of some is due to an ar- 
bitrary choice, and that to others God has seen fit to 
deny his mercy. The preaching of an earlier time, 
which had for its leading themes divine sovereignty, 



82 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

election, and reprobation, took its color largely from 
that conception of God's character of which we are 
speaking. The gloom and despair which this teaching 
often brought into the most earnest souls were products 
of the belief that God dealt with men in mere naked 
sovereignty, and that grace was no essential attribute 
of his nature, but a name for a mode of action which 
was dependent wholly upon his will. 

It may well be doubted whether this doctrine did not 
logically shut out the possibility of salvation altogether. 
If justice is the one only essential and necessary attri- 
bute of God, what room is left for the prevalence over 
it of a secondary and optional quality ? When it is an- 
swered that absolute justice was done to sin in the penal 
sufferings of Christ, the question at once arises, What 
quality in God could have prompted the substitution of 
Christ for us in punishment ? It could not have sprung 
from justice ; for justice would have counselled the pun- 
ishment of guilty man himself, and not that of an inno- 
cent substitute. The only possible answer is 'that this 
provision looking toward man's salvation was due to the 
benevolence or mercy of God. But this answer makes 
mercy as fundamental in God as justice, since this just 
" plan of salvation " through Christ's death is ascribed 
to mercy as its motive. The theory in question be- 
gins by logically excluding God's mercy, and ends by 
ascribing its "just" work of atonement to mercy as its 
only possible source and spring. It tells us at the out- 
set that God must be just, but need not be merciful. 
But if this proposition is a correct description of his na- 
ture, we should be led to suppose that absolute justice 
would be done in the exclusion of the guilty world from 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 83 

salvation altogether. At this point, however, we are 
told that absolute justice has been done ; that the 
world's sin has been punished vicariously in Christ ; 
but when we ask, why this was done, the only answer 
is, Because God was merciful. In other words, the 
essential mercy of God, which is excluded by definition 
at the beginning, is afterwards admitted when an effort 
is made to describe his actual procedure in relation to 
sin. God's action, thus, does not conform to this defi- 
nition of his character. 

This brief sketch of a long-prevalent mode of theolo- 
gical thought and argument may serve to illustrate the 
practical consequences of a one-sided conception of the 
character of God. When, on the other hand, the mercy 
of God has been emphasized at the expense of his jus- 
tice, an equally false view has resulted. The character 
of God has been reduced to easy-going good nature and 
he has been thought too good to punish sin. On this 
view of God the demands of righteousness and the 
restraints of law are relaxed, and the very foundations 
of morality are weakened. This conception easily leads 
those who entertain it to think lightly of sin. Its guilt 
and desert of punishment are denied, and sin is regarded 
as mere excusable weakness, mistake, or failure. The 
reaction in recent times from the harsh and arbitrary 
views of the older theology has carried many minds to 
an opposite extreme. Here, as so often, the true course 
is not to adopt either extreme, nor even to take a mid- 
dle position between them, but to take a higher po- 
sition than that assumed by either, and to combine 
the elements of truth upon which each insists. God 
is absolutely righteous. Justice and judgment are the 



84 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

foundation of his throne. Righteousness is absolutely 
essential in his nature. Were he for a moment unright- 
eous, he would not be God. But God is also, in his 
very essence, good or benevolent. His mercy endureth 
forever. God cannot be imagined to cease for a mo- 
ment from being benevolent and compassionate without 
an utter perversion of his nature. The holy displeasure 
of God against sin and its just punishment do not in- 
volve the cessation of his mercy. Neither in his action 
nor in his nature is God ever divided against himself. 

From these illustrations the advantages of maintain- 
ing, in its integrity, the truth that God is love should 
be apparent. All moral perfections are fundamental 
and essential in God, and love is a name for moral com- 
pleteness. God cannot be conceived as resigning or 
as suspending by an act of will the exercise of any 
moral perfection. He does not have to render his 
mercy quiescent that he may exercise justice, nor to 
surrender his justice that he may be merciful. He 
is both the righteous Ruler of the universe in whose 
being all principles of right and truth have their eternal 
seat, and the God of all grace, the Father of all tender 
mercies. We owe it to an undue narrowing of the idea 
of God's love, and to a one-sided emphasis of his justice, 
that many seem afraid that his holiness will be lost 
to us if we maintain in its fullest, largest meaning the 
truth that God is love ; I say, the truth that God is 
love, not merely that God may be love ; not merely that 
God has love ; but that God is love ; that the centre 
of this universe is a heart whose affections are cease- 
lessly poured forth upon the world which he has made. 

When it is maintained that God is, in his very nature, 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 85 

merciful and compassionate, it is not meant that he is 
so by any necessity which dwells outside of or above 
himself. The "necessity" is a purely moral necessity, 
springing out of his own perfect nature. The " neces- 
sity " that God should be benevolent is precisely the 
same as the "necessity" that he should be just. He 
must be both, since he must be himself. The freedom 
and excellence of mercy are no more sacrificed by mak- 
ing it essential in God's nature, than are the freedom 
and excellence of righteousness sacrificed by defining 
that attribute as fundamental in God. For God there 
is no necessity except that of conformity to his own 
perfection, but this necessity is the highest and the 
most inflexible that is conceivable. It is that absolute 
bondage to right-doing which is coincident with perfect 
freedom, and in which consists the consummation of 
personal excellence. 

I believe that these considerations accord with the 
actual disclosure of the character of God in the person, 
work, and teaching of Jesus Christ, and with the de- 
mands of practical Christian thought and life. God 
is the Father and Friend of men, even of the most sin- 
ful men. He is always ready to bless and to forgive, 
where to do so is morally possible. It is according to 
his changeless nature to give, to serve, to sympathize. 
The gracious work of Christ for man's salvation was 
born of God's compassionate heart. His justice is not 
such a mere demand for quid pro quo, such a passion 
for quantitative payment and vengeance, that the ex- 
ercise of mercy appears as a violation or suspension 
of it. It is compatible with forgiveness when, in the 
method of forgiveness, the ill desert of sin and God's 



86 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

righteous displeasure against it, are revealed and vindi- 
cated. 

The Christian heart demands a conception of God 
in which every essential element of goodness shall 
be recognized. No real quality of moral perfection 
must be denied to God, or be denned to be merely 
subordinate and secondary in his nature and optional 
as respects its exercise. We should deny to a man 
the highest Christian character who chose not to be 
merciful, or who should feel himself at liberty so to 
choose. The Christian conception of God must not 
be lower than the Christian conception of the highest 
manhood. Let us have no low idea of God. He is 
great. He is greater than our hearts and our thoughts ; 
greater than the sum of all conceivable perfections 
which we ascribe to him. The perfection of our life 
can only consist in moral likeness to God. His bestow- 
ment of his love upon us has for its end to make us his 
children ; that is, to bring us into sympathy and fellow- 
ship of life with himself. We can now easily see why 
Christianity teaches that love is the sum of all good- 
ness. Since God is love, it follows that he that dwell- 
eth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him (i John 
iv. 1 6). 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TRINITY 

In offering some remarks upon the doctrine of the 
Trinity, it is far from my purpose to undertake to eluci- 
date the mystery which it involves. The inner nature 
of the Deity is an impenetrable secret, which the human 
mind cannot explore ; and the Trinity is, in one aspect 
of it, a name for this unfathomable mystery. We, there- 
fore, freely concede at the outset the difficulties and the 
mysteriousness of the subject. To these difficulties 
those who reject the doctrine naturally and urgently 
appeal. On the basis of them they declare it to be 
inconceivable and irrational. In regard to this claim 
I would say that the intellectual difficulties which beset 
a truth are not necessarily a bar to belief in it. Nor is 
the credible always limited to the conceivable. The 
primary question respecting the Trinity is, whether 
there are adequate grounds for belief in it. If there 
are, the mystery of it should not deter the mind from 
its acceptance. 

The essence of the doctrine of the Trinity is, that 
God exists in a threefold mode of being, as Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit. Each of these is, in the strict sense, 
divine, that is, partakes of the nature of Deity. All 
three of them together constitute the one only God. 
There is a unity of nature or substance in God, and 

87 



88 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

there is, at the same time, a threefoldness or trinality 
which represents eternal distinctions in the divine es- 
sence. God is one and God is three, but not, of course, 
in the same sense. He is one in substance or essence ; 
but there exists within this one essence three persons 
or subsistences, which are revealed to us under the 
names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

There are many notions of God's nature which stand 
in contrast to the Trinitarian idea. One of these is the 
Unitarian doctrine. On this view, God is one and soli- 
tary ; he is in no sense three. There is no room, 
according to this conception, for interrelations or in- 
tercommunion within the nature of the divine Being. 
God is, apart from creation, absolutely solitary. An- 
other contrasted view is the pantheistic. On this view, 
God is at once the One and the All. The universe 
itself is taken up and lost in God ; or, stating the idea 
from its other side, God is identified with the universe 
and lost in it. This mode of thought almost necessa- 
rily surrenders the personality of God. Still another 
view is the polytheistic, which admits the existence of 
many gods, and assigns to them various limitations 
of nature and function. The doctrine of the Trinity 
stands in contrast with the Unitarian view in affirming 
a certain manifoldness of life, an interplay and inter- 
relation within the nature of God, as opposed to the idea 
of solitary existence. It differs from pantheism in dis- 
tinguishing God from the world which he creates, and 
by ascribing to his nature all fulness of being and of 
fellowship, apart from creation. From polytheism the 
Trinitarian doctrine differs in affirming that the unity 
of the divine nature underlies the personal distinctions 
which it recognizes. 



THE TRINITY 89 

It may, I think, be fairly assumed that since this doc- 
trine, with all its difficulties, has been held for many 
centuries by the great majority of the most thoughtful 
and learned men of the Christian world, there must be 
some good reasons for its acceptance. A doctrine so 
mysterious and so difficult to define and defend could 
hardly have arisen and taken so strong a hold upon 
the Christian world, unless there had been some im- 
portant facts of revelation which supported and re- 
quired it. What these facts were may be, in part, 
briefly stated. 

The great fact which occasioned the development of 
the doctrine was the incarnation. The claims which 
Christ made for himself, and the claims which the New 
Testament writers make for him, compel the admission 
of his eternal pre-existence and his divine nature. The 
present difference among scholars in regard to this sub- 
ject is not so much a difference respecting what the 
New Testament says and means, as a difference in re- 
spect to the trustworthiness and value of its testimony. 
That our Gospels represent Jesus as claiming for him- 
self pre-temporal existence, and participation in the 
divine nature, cannot, without great exegetical arbitra- 
riness, be denied, and is commonly admitted at present 
by competent scholars of all schools. Before the world 
was, he existed in glory at the Father's side (John xvii. 
5) ; and before Abraham was born, he is (John viii. 
58). John affirms that the Logos, the pre-existent 
Christ, was God (John i. 1) ; and Paul speaks of him 
as existing, previous to his incarnation, in the form of 
God, and, by implication, refers to his equality with 
God (Phil, ii. 6). There is no escape from the conclu- 



90 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

sion that the New Testament teaches the essential deity 
of Christ. Those who reject the doctrine, therefore, — 
if they give any heed to New Testament teaching at all, 
— are bound to show that its testimony on this subject 
is inadequate or untrustworthy. With the methods of 
argument by which this effort is commonly made, we 
are not now concerned. If Christ is divine, and yet, 
at the same time, can speak of the Father in distinc- 
tion from himself, these two facts, taken together, give 
us both the idea of the unity and that of the distinction 
between him and God. 

But a further fact meets us. Christ speaks of the 
Holy Spirit as distinct both from the Father and from 
himself, and yet ascribes to him divine prerogatives 
and powers. He is " another Advocate," distinct from 
Christ (John xiv. 16). He bears witness of Christ 
(John xv. 26) ; and his coming to the disciples is con- 
ditioned upon the Saviour's departure (John xvi. 7). 
Personal pronouns are used in referring to the Spirit, 
and personal activities are constantly ascribed to him. 
If the deity of the Spirit is not explicitly asserted, it is 
certainly implied in the whole description of his work 
and significance. If the deity of Christ be admitted, it 
can hardly be doubted that his teaching concerning the 
function of the Spirit in redemption, and concerning 
the Spirit's relation to his own person and to the 
Father, clearly implies the conception of his essential 
deity. This conclusion is confirmed by those passages 
in the New Testament where we find an approach to 
the Trinitarian formula. I refer to the words in the 
"great commission :" "baptizing them into the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost " 



THE TRINITY 91 

(Matt, xxviii. 19), and to the apostolic benediction : 
" The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of 
God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with 
you all" (2 Cor. xiii. 14). Let it not be supposed that 
the passages to which I have been referring represent 
the whole scriptural evidence for the doctrine of the 
Trinity. They do, however, furnish the principal data 
which have given rise to Trinitarian doctrine and belief. 

It is true, as a matter of fact, that for most persons 
who accept the trustworthiness and truthfulness of the 
New Testament, the evidence for the Trinitarian view 
of the divine nature is sufficient. This evidence, in the 
nature of the case, will not appeal to those who hold 
that the New Testament is not sufficiently historical to 
yield us the actual teaching of Jesus on such subjects. 
Nor will it have force for those who distrust the truth- 
fulness of Jesus' own self -testimony. But if one believes 
that what he claimed and asserted is true, and that the 
New Testament fairly represents his claims, no one 
can charge him with unreasonableness in holding that 
these claims and statements justify belief in the doctrine 
of the Trinity. The doctrines of the deity of Christ, 
and of the Trinity, cannot be denied except upon grounds 
which involve the surrender of the historicity and truth- 
fulness of the New Testament. 

Some persons who have acknowledged that the teach- 
ing of Jesus and of the apostles involved the doctrine 
of the equal divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
have avoided the acceptance of the commonly received 
doctrine of the Trinity by holding that these three 
terms designate three phases or modes of the divine 
self-manifestation, and not essential and eternal distinc- 



92 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tions in the nature of God. This is the so-called Sa- 
bellian doctrine. It holds to a Trinity of revelation 
only, a moral as opposed to an immanent Trinity. It 
is, however, an unsatisfactory explanation of the facts 
with which it seeks to deal. It does not accord with 
the New Testament teaching respecting the eternal pre- 
existence of the Son of God in a form of being distinct 
from the Father. John teaches that the pre-existent 
Christ was in the beginning with God, and was God 
(John i. i). By this language, which he here chooses 
with great care, he expresses the view that the pre- 
existent Son was properly divine, and yet was distin- 
guished from God the Father. To the same effect is 
the claim of the Son to absolute existence where he 
says : " Before Abraham was born, I am " (John viii. 
58). Here Christ's absolute existence is expressed in 
the words " I am," in contrast to Abraham's coming 
into being. 1 Moreover, if God is revealed as a Trinity, 
it is reasonable to suppose that he exists as such. He 
is revealed as he is. The doctrine of the moral Trinity 
represents a natural effort to escape from the difficulties 
which beset the commonly received view, but is inade- 
quate to explain the teaching of Christ and of the New 
Testament generally. 

I have already alluded to the objection so often made 
to the doctrine of the Trinity, that it is inconceivable, 



1 The Greek text of these passages is : 'Er ap%Q rjv b Xdyot, <eu b X6yo<; rjv Trpoj 
top Oeov, Kal debg rjv b kdyog. Tlp'tv 'A/?paa/x ytviadai iyu rifii. The student of the 
original text will note that the Logos is called Bed; ; that is, God generically con- 
sidered, but distinguished from 6 Qeos ; that is, the Father specifically considered. 
For a fuller discussion of this whole subject in its exegetical and theological 
aspects, I refer the reader to my work on The Johannine Theology, chaps, iv. 
and v. 



THE TRINITY 93 

and therefore irrational. It is necessary to weigh this 
objection more carefully. If, when it is said that the 
Trinity is inconceivable, it is meant that the mind can 
form no mental picture of it, the statement is quite 
true. The truth of the Trinity transcends the reach 
and power of the imagination. But so also do thou- 
sands of truths for which the evidence is commonly 
deemed to be overwhelming, and which are therefore 
generally accepted among men. We cannot imagine, 
that is, form any definite mental concept, of the hu- 
man soul. The interrelation and interaction of the 
soul and the body are absolutely inconceivable. We 
cannot picture to ourselves the various faculties or 
powers of our own mysterious personalities. Yet we 
recognize this complexity of our personality, this ful- 
ness and interplay of powers in our mental structure, 
as an unquestionable fact. Our powerlessness to con- 
ceive of these things does not overbear the testimony 
in their behalf. This testimony we find in our own 
consciousness and experience ; and it is quite irresist- 
ible, despite the inability of the imagination to deal 
with the truths of which it assures us. We also ac- 
cept many inconceivable facts, for which the evidence 
is found outside our own mental life. Such are many 
of the truths of science. The nature and action of nat- 
ural forces, and especially the marvellous phenomena of 
psychical action — such as the influence of mind over 
body, and of one mind upon another — are utterly be- 
yond the power of the imagination to construe. The 
truth is, that when we come to reflect upon the matter, 
we find that the province of the imagination is very 
restricted. It can never be made, in any sphere of 



94 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

knowledge, the measure of our convictions, or the final 
test of truth. That we cannot conceive of the Trinity, 
is, therefore, no real evidence against its truth. 

But when it is said that the Trinity is inconceivable, 
it is sometimes meant that it is contrary to reason. If 
it be true that the doctrine is contrary to the principles 
and laws of thought, that is, if it be inherently absurd, 
its acceptance cannot be justified, and all seeming evi- 
dence of its truth must be really deceptive and false. 
If, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity were that 
God is one and three in the same sense, it would be 
absurd, and belief in it would be stultifying. But this 
is not the doctrine. It is affirmed that God is one in 
essence or substance, but three in the sense that there 
exists, in the unity of this one substance, a trinality of 
life. The truth of the Trinity is not contrary to rea- 
son, although it is above and beyond reason. What 
mental law forbids us to believe that there is an eter- 
nal trinality in the one absolute Being ? What axiom 
is violated by the supposition that the mode of the 
divine existence is absolutely unique, and that to this 
mode of existence finite being furnishes no analogy ? 
The doctrine of the Trinity is, in no proper sense, irra- 
tional. I repeat that the question concerning it is the 
question whether the evidence of its truth is sufficient 
to warrant its acceptance. 

It will be seen, from what has been said, that the 
Trinity is a formula or symbol which aims to gather up 
into unity and harmony several of the most essential 
truths of Christianity. It is sometimes called the cen- 
tral truth of Christianity, and it is so in the sense that 
it conserves and combines the most fundamental truths 



THE TRINITY 95 

of Christian revelation. With the acceptance or rejec- 
tion of the doctrine the evangelical system of theology 
has commonly stood or fallen. The doctrine of the 
deity of Christ, and the significance of his saving work, 
are involved in the truth of the triune nature of God. 
The denial of the Trinity on account of its mysterious- 
ness has usually carried with it the denial of some of 
the most characteristic doctrines of Christianity on ac- 
count of their mysteriousness. If men are too impatient 
of mystery to accept the Trinity, they will probably be 
too much so to believe in the incarnation, the atonement, 
and related truths. The doctrine of the Trinity repre- 
sents the effort of the mind to define a conclusion re- 
specting the internal nature of the Deity to which the 
facts of revelation conspire to lead. This effort can 
never be more than partially successful. The human 
mind can never adequately describe the interior consti- 
tution of the divine Being. It has, therefore, been truly 
said that " the term * Trinity ' is a hieroglyph, ... an al- 
gebraic sign for an unknown, mysterious relation." 1 It 
represents an effort to co-ordinate several fundamental 
and well-attested truths, and has, as respects the fact of 
it, all the evidence which supports these truths. This 
statement does not, however, involve the claim that 
any attempt to describe the threefold nature of God 
is to be regarded as adequate. The doctrine of the 
Trinity rests upon grounds similar to those on which 
many other Christian doctrines rest, that of the incar- 
nation, for example. The facts of Christ's appearance 
justify belief in an incarnation of God in humanity. 
This conclusion is urged upon us with a constraining 

1 Fisher, Faith and Rationalism, p. 53. 



96 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

force which arises from certain historical facts and 
events. But these facts yield us no knowledge which 
enables us to describe the mode of the incarnation. 
We have always carefully to distinguish between the 
acceptance of a truth upon adequate evidence, and the 
satisfactory explanation of that truth in itself. We 
should be ready to accept a theory or doctrine for 
which the evidence is sufficient, even if we cannot 
satisfactorily explain or justify the same when con- 
sidered as a mental problem by itself. 

It seems to me to be a misfortune that the doctrine 
of the Trinity has been so generally presented as a 
problem or puzzle by itself, rather than as an insoluble 
mystery which we accept because the facts of revelation 
unmistakably point to it. The efforts at a close defi- 
nition of the subject may well be regarded as some- 
what presumptuous. They seem like attempts to break 
through the impenetrable mystery, and to fathom the 
very abyss of Deity. It is more natural and helpful 
to approach the subject from the side of the historic 
facts of revelation, and to stop short at the conclusion 
to which they lead us ; viz., that the person and teach- 
ing of Christ, and the doctrine of the New Testament 
in general, justify and require the supposition of an 
essential trinality in the divine nature. If the doctrine 
of the Trinity is approached directly, and is taken up 
as a problem for solution, the mind will probably be 
baffled and repelled. The true method of approach is 
along the line of those facts of divine revelation which 
lead us at length to the heights of this mystery, where 
we can no longer define and describe, and where thought 
must acknowledge its bounds and find its resting-place. 



THE TRINITY 97 

Christians do not believe in the Trinity because they 
suppose that they can explain it, or can solve the 
difficulties connected with it, nor do they believe in it 
because it is a doctrine which taken by itself they can 
satisfactorily defend ; they believe in it because Christ's 
teaching and person require it, and because it lies em- 
bedded in the whole substance of Christian revelation. 

If it is urged, as it sometimes is, that the doctrine 
is not taught in the Bible, the answer is, that, while it 
is not explicitly and formally taught, the elements of 
truth which compose it, such as the deity of Christ and 
the personality of the Spirit, and the facts which re- 
quire it, such as the incarnation and atonement, are 
fundamental factors in all biblical revelation and teach- 
ing. 

In emphasizing, as I have done, the mysteriousness 
of the doctrine, and the undesirableness of approaching 
it in a priori way as a problem to be solved, or a mystery 
to be cleared of difficulties by explanation and defini- 
tion, I do not wish to be understood as admitting that 
no rational considerations can be justly urged in sup- 
port of it. It may fairly be said, in the first place, that 
it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Absolute 
exists in a mode of being to which finite nature fur- 
nishes no adequate analogy. The Deity does not be- 
long to any class of beings whose attributes can be made 
determining for the conception which we are to en- 
tertain of his nature. He stands alone and unique. It 
cannot be argued that because nature and human life 
furnish no examples of such a Trinity in unity as we 
believe to exist in God, the belief is contrary to reason 
and experience. It is above and beyond all experience ; 



98 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

it may be, in important respects, above and beyond 
reason, but it is not on that account contrary to it. 

There are, moreover, some suggestive facts which 
present themselves to our view in contemplating the 
universe, with which the idea of the Trinity in God does 
strikingly accord. We find, for example, that as we 
ascend the scale of being, life becomes diversified and 
complex. Not only do we observe this general fact in 
the world of matter, but in the world of mind as well. 
The mental life of the lower orders of creation appears 
very simple. Their souls act in but a few directions 
and in but a very limited sphere. The mental organ- 
ization of man, on the contrary, is very complex and 
diversified. Philosophers have always analyzed his na- 
ture into distinguishable elements or faculties. One 
analysis, which regards his whole nature, distinguishes 
body, soul, and spirit. A more common analysis is 
that which describes the mental life as composed of in- 
tellect, sensibility, and will. Psychology is compelled 
to recognize, as does our popular speech, that there is 
a certain threefoldness in man, three sets of distinguish- 
able powers or faculties, which do not, however, impair 
the unity of the total man. The one indivisible mind 
or soul acts in three distinguishable ways and relations. 

I lay no stress on the threefoldness of this well-nigh 
universal analysis of man's mental constitution, nor do I 
urge the complexity of mental life in the highest form 
of being which we immediately know, as, in any strict 
sense, an argument for the doctrine of the Trinity. I 
do, however, claim that it would be according to analogy 
to expect that in the Supreme Being there should be a 
manifoldness and complexity of life surpassing those 



THE TRINITY 99 

which we find to exist in the highest forms of finite 
being. While we cannot maintain that any such con- 
siderations could ever conduct us to the Trinitarian 
doctrine of God, we do claim that when once divine 
revelation has furnished us adequate ground for form- 
ing and holding that doctrine, we are confirmed in its 
reasonableness by finding that it accords with all that 
we can learn of the nature of being in general. Con- 
siderations like this which I have presented, are not 
strictly a part of the evidence for the truth of the 
Trinity ; but they do fall into line with that evidence, 
and serve to confirm it from the side of reason and 
observation. 

I turn now to a brief consideration of the argument 
for the doctrine of the Trinity which is derived from the 
nature of God as love. We must suppose that there 
was once a time when this finite world did not exist. 
If God alone is uncreated and self-existent, then the 
entire universe, including all men and angels, must have 
begun to be. Let our thought now travel back to the 
time when God alone existed. Shall we think of him 
as absolutely single and solitary, dwelling in eternal 
silence and self-contemplation, or as having within him- 
self the conditions of a social life ? Which conception 
best befits the notion of his inherent perfection ? If 
God is truly the absolute Being, as theists commonly 
suppose ; if he is not dependent upon the world in re- 
spect to his own existence and perfection, but has freely 
created the same — then must his nature be perfect in 
itself, and in this nature all the conditions of blessedness 
must be realized. It seems to me that the Trinitarian 
doctrine of God, which affirms distinctions and relations 



100 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

as eternally existing in his essence, best answers to the 
idea of his inherent perfection, because it supposes the 
divine life to be, by its very nature, social and self- 
communicating. 

If this seem an abstract method of presenting the 
subject, let us approach it by saying that there is an 
eternal Fatherhood in God. He is not merely the 
Father of men and of all higher orders of created be- 
ings. He did not at some point begin to be a Father. 
The relations of Fatherhood and Sonship which con- 
cretely express to us what we count most dear in the 
nature of God, are eternal and constituent in his very 
being. Let me present this thought in the words of 
one of the most independent and suggestive living 
writers on theology, once himself a Unitarian, — Mr. 
Richard Holt Hutton : "If Christ is the eternal Son of 
God, God is indeed and in essence a Father ; the social 
nature, the spring of love, is of the very essence of the 
eternal Being; the communication of his life, the recip- 
rocation of his affection, dates from beyond time, be- 
longs, in other words, to the very being of God. Now, 
some persons think that such a certainty, even when 
attained, has very little to do with human life. ' What 
does it matter,' they say, < what the absolute nature of 
God is, if we know what he is to us f How can it con- 
cern us to know what he was before our race existed, if 
we know what he is to all his creatures now ? ' These 
questions seem plausible, but I believe they point to a 
very deep error. I can answer for myself that the Uni- 
tarian conviction that God is — as God and in his eternal 
essence — a single, solitary personality, influenced my 
imagination and the whole color of my faith most pro- 



THE TRINITY 101 

foundly. Such a conviction, thoroughly realized, ren- 
ders it impossible to identify any of the social attributes 
with his real essence — renders it difficult not to regard 
power as the true root of all other divine life. If we 
are to believe that the Father was from all time, we must 
believe that he was as a Father ; that is, that love was 
actual in him as well as potential, that the communica- 
tion of life and thought, and fulness of joy, was of the 
inmost nature of God, and never began to be, if God 
never began to be." * 

It is commonly agreed among Christians that the 
most perfect description which can be given of the 
divine nature is that which is contained in the scrip- 
tural statement — " God is love." If this means, not 
merely that God, as a matter of fact, does love, not 
merely that he may be or that he has love, but that 
love is an eternal quality of his moral nature which is 
absolutely fundamental and constitutive in his being — 
then it would seem that there must be within his nature 
itself, occasion and scope for the exercise of love, apart 
from his relations to finite existence. Love is a social 
attribute, and the conditions and relations which love 
implies must exist in the very essence of God. In the 
Trinitarian view of God, these conditions have forever 
existed in the eternal personal distinctions and reciprocal 
relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God did not 
begin to love when he created, nor is his love a mere 
potentiality which in the silent depths of eternity looks 
forward to creation for its satisfaction. Love is the 
very core and essence of God's moral nature, and as 

1 Essay on The Incarnation and Principles of Evidence, in Theological 
Essays, page 257. 



102 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

such is ceaselessly active within the internal relations 
of Deity. Love is eternally in full exercise, since God 
is love, and love ever found in God's own perfect 
Being the full fruition and blessedness of its exercise 
in self-communication and fellowship. 

We thus see that, despite the difficulties which the 
Trinitarian doctrine presents to the imagination, it has 
the great advantage of according with the highest con- 
ception which revelation yields us of the moral nature 
of God. It enables us to maintain that God eternally 
is what he is revealed to be ; that the moral perfections 
of God, and the sum of all those perfections — love, are 
not mere modes of his action in relation to finite being, 
but component qualities of his ethical nature, absolutely 
fundamental in his essence. The Trinitarian doctrine, 
in this aspect of it, is a method of maintaining that the 
most sacred realities of personal existence, all of which 
are best summed up in the word love, are reflections 
in our nature of the glorious and eternal perfections of 
God in whose moral image we are made. This view 
of God, abstrusely as it may be stated, is not meaning- 
less and valueless in its practical bearing on human life. 
It means that we are to think of God, not first of all as 
mere power or will, but as a Father. It puts love on 
the throne of the universe by making it central in the 
nature and action of God. 

The Trinity is a practical truth. High as it is above 
reason, baffling as it is to the imagination and to 
thought, it accords with the demands and deliver- 
ances of the Christian consciousness. It conserves 
the truth of Christ's essential divinity and that of the 
reality and power of the work of the Spirit, which he 



THE TRINITY 103 

described as the sequel and completion of his own work. 
It accords with belief in the incarnation, and makes the 
redemptive work of Christ a divine work. All this the 
Christian consciousness craves and requires. We want 
to know, not merely that God has sent us a message, 
not merely that in Jesus he has raised up an exception- 
ally pure and holy member of the human race, but that 
in him God has come to us, and that his work of reve- 
lation and redemption is a work of God. Our sense 
of sin is met and answered only by the knowledge of 
a divine Redeemer. Mystery as the Trinity is, it is a 
mystery which is full of heavenly light. If it defies all 
our powers of description and definition, it does, at the 
same time, enrich our whole conception of God, and 
heighten our estimate both of the Redeemer and of his 
work. It is a mystery of light, not of darkness. It 
does not becloud the mind and paralyze religious 
thought as would a doctrine which should run counter 
to the highest moral instincts and feelings of the soul ; 
it rather quickens devout reflection and kindles aspira- 
tion, by the emphasis which it lays upon love as central 
in God, and upon the Son of God and the Holy Spirit as 
real powers which have ever been active in the human 
life and history, influencing and illuminating men, and 
reconciling the world unto God. 

The doctrine of the Trinity conserves the idea of the 
richness and fulness of the divine life and love, and of 
the amplitude of their manifestation. According to its 
terms, God is revealed to us as our Father, and his eter- 
nal nature is shown to be fatherly ; Jesus Christ is pre- 
sented to us as a true incarnation of God in humanity, 
a Redeemer whose divine person and work are a veri- 



104 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

table revelation of God; and the Holy Spirit is con- 
ceived of as an actual divine agent who dwells and 
works in human life, influencing and moulding it into 
the divine likeness. According to the Trinitarian 
doctrine, we have to do, in Christianity, with divine 
realities. Our religion is not a subjective play of fine 
ideas, memories, or aspirations. God is in his world. 
He has always been in his world, revealing himself, in 
invisible ways, through the Light that lighteth every 
man, and through the action of the all-pervading Spirit ; 
but at length he came by an incarnation into humanity, 
in order that, through union with man, he might make 
his self-disclosure more clear, adequate, and apprehensi- 
ble. Our religion is intensely supernatural. It is fitted 
to quicken and foster in our hearts a living sense of 
God. The forces that provide and complete our sal- 
vation are truly divine. It is God that has wrought for 
us and in us ; our life is ensphered in Deity, and filled 
with the fulness of him that filleth all in all. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 

The person of Jesus Christ is the great miracle of 
history. It is at once the mystery and the glory of the 
religion which is called by his name. Supreme and 
solitary, Christ stands among men, towering above all 
others. Yet his superiority to all other men does not 
involve a separateness from them in interest and sym- 
pathy. He is most closely identified with his fellows ; 
he is ideally, intensely human. He is elevated above 
other men just because he represents humanity in its 
perfection, because in him we behold our common hu- 
man nature dignified and glorified by the disclosure of 
its divine origin and destiny. 

We must approach the character of Christ from this 
human side. We must look upon him as he is pre- 
sented to us in the clear light of the Gospels, and must 
listen to the words which he speaks to us concerning 
God and ourselves. We need bring with us no formu- 
lated theory of his person, no definition of the mystery 
of his being ; enough that we bring a serious, reverent, 
and teachable mind, a willingness to hear and to learn 
what we know that we most want and most need to 
know. Let this, then, be our method of approach. 
Who he is, whence he came, and how his person is to 
be explained, need not now concern us. Let us hear 

105 



106 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

what he says to us, and try to estimate its value and 
use for our life ; let us look, as far as we can, into his 
mind, and put ourselves under the power of his spirit 
— then we may naturally raise the question, what we 
are to think of the origin and nature of his person. 
When we listen to what the Gospels tell us of him, 
a remarkable fact meets us at the outset. He seems to 
have made it his first concern to induce men to accept 
his idea of God and his principles of human living, 
rather than to adopt any particular view of his own 
personality. A critical, comparative study of the Gos- 
pels leads to the conclusion that he was very slow to 
announce himself as the Messiah, and that he wished 
to avoid exciting too keen an interest in the discussion 
of the nature of his person. His characteristic truths, 
however, concerning God and man and duty, he was 
always urging upon the minds of men. He certainly 
made important claims respecting his person and mis- 
sion ; but he seemed willing to let these claims take care 
of themselves, if only men would repent of sin, believe 
in God, and try to live lives of unselfish love. He 
offered himself to men through the truth which he 
brought to them, and the spirit of heavenly peace 
which pervaded his life. He refused to compel the 
wonder and homage of men by miracle. He sought 
to quicken faith by appealing to what was highest and 
holiest in men. He had little confidence in the zeal 
and devotion of any professed adherents who had not 
caught something of the sense of God and of the spirit 
of trust and service which filled his own heart, and who 
had not felt, in some measure, the attracting and uplift- 
ing power of the ideal of life which he presented. 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 107 

The Gospels set vividly before us many a scene in 
which Jesus is heard speaking to a motley company 
about him. What is he saying ? Let us listen. He 
is speaking to men about God, and is teaching them to 
pray to him, beginning, " Our Father." He is telling 
them how to be like him in love, in sympathy, and pity. 
He is telling them what the kingdom of God is, and 
how it is to come on earth and in the hearts of men. 
Here is certainly a man whose whole mind is filled with 
the thought of God, and whose whole life is inspired 
with the sense of his presence. Here is a man who 
speaks to his fellow-men about God in a clear, confident, 
and assuring tone. He is one who is himself absolutely 
sure of God, sure of his existence, his character, his 
providence, and his love. Moreover, he speaks in a 
tone of calm, yet commanding conviction. The peo- 
ple, as they listened, were astonished ; they had never 
heard religious truth taught with such a sense of inner 
certitude, with such an apparent consciousness of divine 
authority. 

He also speaks to men about themselves. He at 
once discloses to men their true destiny, and their 
actual failures in achieving it. His ideal of life is the 
highest possible — likeness to God himself ; and his inter- 
pretation of life's true meaning opens to the spirit of 
man a large, free world of thought and achievement. 
His words search the hiding-places of human motive. 
He knows what is in man, and how firmly, yet kindly, 
does he lay bare the secrets of the human heart. There 
never was such an interpreter of human life as Jesus 
was. He was not merely a critic who mercilessly ex- 
posed the faults and sins of men ; he was the friend of 



108 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

those whose misguided lives he sought to restore to 
purity and strength. He brought his appeal to bear 
upon man's whole nature. The sense of God and of 
the divine origin and meaning of life which he aimed 
to kindle in man, roused mind, heart, and will to new 
activity and energy. The truths concerning God and 
concerning man's kinship to God which he brought 
to men were fitted to impart a new incentive to 
thought, and to fire every noble emotion of which the 
soul is capable. 

Another remarkable thing about the personality of 
Jesus is that, while he had the keenest sense of what 
was sinful and wrong, he never in any way implied that 
he was personally conscious of sin. It is inconceiv- 
able that he should have failed to apply his penetrating 
analysis of sin to himself unless he had believed himself 
to be free from sin. Moreover, his marvellous knowl- 
edge of the human heart and character excludes the sup- 
position that he did not know himself. As he appears 
to us to be sinless, so we must believe that he appeared 
to himself. Or, to state the thought positively, he was 
conscious of perfect holiness of motive and action, of 
perfect harmony in purpose and desire with the will of 
God. He prays often to God ; but he never asks for 
forgiveness, for he does always those things that please 
God. He intercedes for the sinful world, but he does 
not intercede for himself ; and he challenges the men of 
his time to convict him of an act of sin (John viii. 46). 

With these brief hints respecting the import of 
Jesus' teaching, his searching analysis of motive, and 
his personal sense of sinlessness, let us turn to a study 
of the principal elements of his perfection of character. 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 109 

The completeness of his character is seen in the full 
and harmonious development of all the legitimate qual- 
ities of manhood. We feel at once, as soon as we be- 
gin to examine the character of Jesus, that it is free 
from all oddities and exaggerations. It would sound 
strangely inappropriate to speak of " peculiarities " in 
him. There is no abnormal development of some spe- 
cial qualities such as make the marked traits of the 
men and women whom we know. We could ascribe, 
I am sure, no particular " temperament " to him. We 
should not think for a moment of applying to him any 
of those terms by which we are wont to designate the 
special qualities which stand out with peculiar promi- 
nence in the characters of our friends. We feel their 
inadequacy, almost their impropriety, at once. Who 
would think of saying of Jesus, for example, that he 
was a very intellectual man, or that he possessed a 
logical mind? Who would ever speak of him as a 
person of specially strong will, or as a man of the emo- 
tional type ? We feel at once that to speak thus is 
to imply a one-sided development in his character, and 
from this we almost instinctively shrink. When we 
speak thus of our fellow-men, we take it for granted — 
as well we may — that certain qualities are dispropor- 
tionately prominent. 

When we approach the character of Jesus, we see at 
once that there is something absolutely unique about it. 
It is peculiar just because it possesses no "peculiari- 
ties." There is a repose, strength, and completeness 
about it which almost disarm criticism, and seem to 
forbid any comparison of qualities. If one were asked, 
for example, " Was Jesus an energetic person ? " he 



110 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

might half hesitate to answer, not, indeed, because he 
can doubt the silent but powerful energy of his life, 
but because by answering " Yes " he might seem to 
imply that his energy was disproportionate to the 
quietness and repose of his character, as we are wont 
to do when we speak of one another. His energy 
was wonderful, and that just because it was not fitful 
and impulsive, like that of the men whom we com- 
monly distinguish as energetic, but quiet and unobtru- 
sive always. With what a calm, steady perseverance 
did he walk through human life ; and yet with such an 
unassuming quietness that he attracted no attention 
in the world save within the narrow limits of one of 
the more remote Roman provinces. No writer of his 
time makes any mention of his name except the evan- 
gelists whose records lie before us in the Gospels. 
Yet he was no recluse. He mingled freely with his 
fellow-men in their work and at their feasts, in their 
joys and in their sorrows. None of the words which 
designate a peculiar type of man are applicable to him. 
Wonderfully energetic, patient, and persevering, yet no 
enthusiast ; wonderfully calm, quiet, and even reserved, 
yet no recluse. What can we call him if we wish to 
keep to the language of our every-day life ? Only 
what the Scriptures do — "The man, Christ Jesus," 
" The Son of man," the true type, the perfect realiza- 
tion of sinless humanity. 

If we choose to take any other qualities of the truest 
manhood, and see how they are illustrated in the char- 
acter of Jesus, we shall reach, I am sure, the same 
conclusion. We shall see that they belong to him, 
but that they are set in such perfect equipoise with 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 111 

what we are accustomed to call the opposite qualities, 
that they do not attract special attention to them- 
selves. With us it is generally the marked features 
of character which attract attention ; in Jesus it is no 
special quality or set of qualities, but the rounded com- 
pleteness of the whole character. 

The ideal of good taste in dress is, to effect such a 
combination that there shall be absolutely nothing espe- 
cially noticeable except the harmony and fitness of the 
whole. The law for beauty in character is analogous. 
When single qualities shine out with such unique and 
peculiar splendor, the brightness is often but the con- 
trast with the real background of character. The ideal 
character is found only in the complete, symmetrical 
development of the total man. This completeness of 
character we see in Jesus when we consider the har- 
mony of will and emotion, of firmness and tenderness, 
which always characterized his life. Always firm, and 
even severe, in the presence of hypocrisy and sin ; 
always gentle and sympathetic in the presence of sor- 
row and distress ; yet there was never anything arbi- 
trary in his firmness, never anything weak in his 
gentleness. There was no clashing of opposing feel- 
ings and passions in his life. The tender and kindly 
emotions of his heart were never, as so often with us, 
subdued and stifled under the action of a stalwart will ; 
and the will, the true rudder of character, was not 
swayed hither and thither by every passing current of 
emotion. There was harmony among all the elements 
of character, because all were normally developed to- 
gether. 

It should, however, be observed that this harmony 



112 DOCTMNE AND LIFE 

did not result from any toning down of the powers and 
activities of the soul. The whole life was at its maxi- 
mum of energy and strength. It was the harmony 
of intense vigor, in which all the powers operated in 
their fullest force, but without clashing upon one an- 
other. It was the harmony of the most real, but of 
complete manhood. Jesus is thus seen to be humanity 
at its climax. His life gathers up into itself all that 
is most truly and grandly human, and holds it up as the 
promise of what we shall be when we are like him. 

The completeness of Jesus' life is also seen in the 
fact that in him appears no single, local, or national 
type of character, but the " universal man." Cicero 
relates that when Socrates was asked to what state 
he belonged, he answered : " To the world ; " for, adds 
Cicero, " he considered himself a citizen of the world 
at large." Not even the greatest men of antiquity, 
however, seem to have risen wholly above national 
limits. It is not difficult to see that Socrates did 
not do so. The lives of these men were closely bound 
up with the state in which they lived. The limits of 
country marked men off sharply from one another, and 
created barriers over which the mutual sympathies and 
interests of men were not accustomed to cross. Indeed, 
one of the choicest virtues among the ancients was 
supreme devotion to the state. The chief significance 
of the individual was found, not so much in an indepen- 
dent spirit and in broad and generous sympathy, as in 
identification with the social organism. And even now 
how few characters there are that unite local and 
national interests with a sympathy as wide as the 
world — how few that are raised above the limits of 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 113 

social or class affiliations, and are in the broadest 
sense human ! Now let us notice how the character 
of Jesus stands in contrast with these limited types 
of character with which we are familiar. If we look 
for this universality of his character in indifference 
to the friends among whom he lived, or to the nation 
of which he was a part, we shall go widely astray. 
Jesus was a Jew by birth and education ; he lived 
and labored among Jews ; he respected their customs, 
and obeyed their laws. He was in no sense an ec- 
centric or lawless person. He was a loyal and obedient 
citizen of the country in which he lived. 

But of Jewish peculiarities and prejudices we find 
nothing whatever in him. His character is in no 
sense local or national ; his sympathies are in no 
degree limited by any boundaries of country or limits 
of time. They are as wide as the race — as wide as 
the interests, needs, and sins of mankind. Here, again, 
we see how in Christ is realized the idea of common, 
universal humanity. He is conformed to the type of 
social and religious life which belongs to the age and 
country in which he lives ; but his life is in no way 
restricted or narrowed by these. It is evident that 
they are incidental to his life, and in no way the 
measure of it. His outlook on the world is too wide, 
and his insight into human life is too deep, to allow 
him to set his heart on any temporary social organ- 
ization as essential and necessary. 

We find the same breadth in the character of Jesus if 
we consider his relations to his kindred and nearest 
friends. He is never indifferent to those relations. 
He is a true and affectionate son, brother, and friend. 



114 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

But his life knows no family or social limits. He is 
more than the friend of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 
for he called all trustful disciples friends ; he is more 
than the brother of James and Joses and Simon, for 
every one who does the will of God is to him a sister 
or brother ; he is more than the son of Mary, for he 
is the Son of man. In a word, he embraces in his 
mind and heart all mankind ; and, by the principles 
which he introduces and applies to life, he transforms 
what is special into that which is genuinely human and 
universally true. 

The completeness of the character of Jesus is further 
seen in the union in him of the qualities that are most 
truly womanly with those that are considered as more 
distinctively masculine. His nature had the blended 
qualities of both sexes. Frederick W. Robertson con- 
siders that the loss or obscuration of this truth in the 
thought and life of the early church goes far to explain 
the origin and development of the worship of Mary. 1 
Jesus was pictured to the minds of men chiefly in the 
stern aspect of the Judge. The severer elements of 
his character were emphasized to the neglect of his 
more than human gentleness, tenderness, and patience. 
In a word, the men of that time held but one side of 
the character of Christ. They held a half-truth, which, 
as so often happens, tends to complete itself by taking 
on an entire error. Christ as presented in this stern, 
cold aspect could not satisfy the Christian heart. Men 
felt that the milder elements of character, which are the 
glory of woman, are also divine. But not perceiving 

l See the discourse on the Glory of the Virgin Mother, in his Sermons 
preached at Brighton, page 383 ff., Harper & Brothers, New York, 1880. 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 115 

that all that was most truly womanly, and all that 
was most truly manly, were met in Christ ; that his 
divine manhood meant, not divine masculineness, but 
divine humanity ; not perceiving that in Christ " there 
is neither male nor female," and yet feeling that these 
milder qualities must be recognized and honored, they 
naturally sought some other embodiment of them. 
Having practically forgotten one side of the charac- 
ter of Jesus, the Christian consciousness spontane- 
ously tried to supply the place that was left, by 
crowning a queen of heaven by the side of the Son 
of God. All this was the result of a fragmentary, 
one-sided view of Christ. 

Such, in outline, is Mr. Robertson's view of the real 
motive and origin of the cultus of Mary. It is cer- 
tainly suggestive, and is probably essentially true. The 
church needed to see and hold the completeness of 
Christ ; to see that in him, and in the ideal of charac- 
ter which he presents, are met all the qualities that are 
most truly, most nobly human. 

It is these facts to which we have called attention — 
the elevation of the teaching of Jesus, the dignity of 
his person, his sinlessness, and positive completeness of 
character — which, in connection with the special claims 
which he makes, give rise to the problem of his unique 
personality. That according to our Gospels he asserts 
his pre-existence before the world was, and declares that 
he shared the glory of the Father -and enjoyed a pe- 
culiarly close fellowship with him, cannot be denied. 
These extraordinary claims, however, might well be 
questioned were they not re-enforced by the facts of his 
life and character. Moreover, we find this lofty con- 



116 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

ception of the person of Jesus reflected in the writings 
of those who had known him best. When all these 
considerations are combined, we cannot wonder that the 
church has asserted that Jesus Christ was more than a 
man ; that no possible compound of mere human quali- 
ties could produce such a character. 

The facts which have just been mentioned have led 
to the formulation of the doctrine that Jesus Christ mys- 
teriously united in himself both divinity and human- 
ity. This mystery has been accepted and cherished by 
the greater part of the Christian world, not because the 
mind was able to construe or resolve it, but because the 
facts of Christ's teaching, person, and claims were held 
to require it, and because it was believed to be attested 
by his power in human life and history. It is true that 
there have not been wanting believers in the divineness 
of Christ's mission and the peerless superiority of his 
character, who have declined to accept the doctrine of 
his proper divinity, or even that of his pre-existence. 
In such cases, I think it may fairly be said, that impa- 
tience of mystery has overborne evidence of which no 
candid mind can fail to feel the force. It is not 
strange, however, that some minds, looking at the doc- 
trine of Christ's Deity rather on the side of its mysteri- 
ousness, than on that of its evidence and its adaptation 
to meet the needs of man's religious nature, have with- 
held from it their assent. 

That God should reveal himself through an incarna- 
tion in humanity is, indeed, an unparalleled mystery, 
but is not without some confirmation from analogy. 
God reveals himself in all his works, and especially in 
man, who is, in a special sense, kindred in his moral 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 117 

nature to God, and in whom God is believed by all 
religious minds to make himself felt and known. The 
moral likeness of man to God suggests the possibility 
of the incarnation. If, now, the Trinitarian conception 
of the divine nature be adopted, there remains no for- 
midable barrier to the acceptance of the doctrine of the 
incarnation. I am convinced that if we can separate 
the problem of the method of the incarnation from the 
considerations which favor the fact, and can frankly 
admit that the former is an absolute mystery, we shall 
find that the idea of the incarnation will commend itself 
as both fitting into the process of biblical revelation, and 
as answering to the demands of man's religious nature 
in general, and to the verdict of the Christian conscious- 
ness in particular. Let us briefly notice each of these 
points in order. 

The Bible represents a process of progressive revela- 
tion. Of this process the incarnation is the culmina- 
tion. All earlier and less complete forms of revelation 
point toward God's final personal disclosure of himself 
in the person of the eternal Son. This revelation is in 
terms of human life and experience. Earlier revelations 
of God through the providential guidance of nations, 
the equipment of chosen leaders, and the inspiration of 
prophets, were, by their very nature, less direct and 
perfect than is the personal self-revelation in Jesus 
Christ. The will of God may, indeed, be partially 
revealed by commandments and decrees, but the nature 
of God is adequately disclosed to mankind only in him 
who can say, " I and the Father are one ; he that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father " (John x. 30 ; xiv. 
9). Having exhausted all other possibilities of revela- 



118 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tion, God at length makes a personal revelation ; he 
comes into humanity in the person of his Son ; he 
assumes human conditions and relations ; he passes 
through the human experiences of temptation and trial, 
yet without sin ; he sits beneath the shadow of every 
human woe, and passing, at length, through death 
itself, re-enters his heavenly glory. 

It was this life which reveals God as nothing else 
does or can. It is in what Jesus Christ was that God 
has expressed most plainly his own nature and his 
thoughts and purposes toward man. This conception 
of the significance of the incarnation Tennyson has 
aptly embodied in the lines : — 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds. 1 

This revelation of God in Christ throws a most sig- 
nificant light upon the whole purpose of God in history. 
Mystery as it is in its nature and method, it is not 
a mystery which darkens and confuses, but one which 
illumines. In its light the phenomena of more rudi- 
mentary religions assume new meaning. The truths 
which underlie their rites and observances are set 
in plainer relief by the revelation in Christ, while the 
misconceptions and crudities of such systems are more 
clearly seen by its light and are allowed to fall away. 
Especially important is the light which the truth of 
the incarnation throws upon Jewish history. The rev- 
elation of God in Christ is its fulfilment and its ex- 
planation. The religious peculiarities of that history 

1 In Memoriam, Canto xxxvi. 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 119 

present to us an insoluble enigma, except upon the 
view that God was preparing for some signal self-mani- 
festation such as Christianity finds in the incarnation. 
Involving as it does an inexplicable mystery, the in- 
carnation crowns the scheme of divine revelation as the 
Bible represents it, and itself helps to explain many 
other facts of biblical history and teaching which on 
no other supposition can be so satisfactorily explained. 

The truth of the incarnation also answers important 
demands of man's religious nature. Deeply impressed, 
as man must ever be, with the mystery of the world 
and of life, believing that the world must have its 
origin and ground in reason, and that man must be 
destined for immortality, yet finding the world full 
of perplexity, the human spirit longs for nothing so 
much as for an adequate and authoritative disclosure 
of God. After all our searching, God is still invisible. 
We seem to hear his voice, but it is a voice out of a 
realm of mystery into which our eyes cannot penetrate. 
We are still left vacillating between our native convic- 
tion of God and the uncertainty which arises from the 
lack of a direct manifestation of him. We can say 
with confidence that if God should disclose himself in 
a wholly unique manner through an incarnation, that 
disclosure, when properly attested, would afford satis- 
faction to one of man's deepest wants. I do not claim 
that we should be warranted in arguing that these 
desires of man's religious nature for a fuller and more 
direct knowedge of God than nature and conscience 
supply, are an evidence that the person and work of 
Christ are the divinely appointed media of communi- 
cating such knowledge. I do, however, maintain that 



120 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

when such a revelation as that which purports to have 
been made in Christ gives credible evidence of its gen- 
uineness, this evidence is powerfully re-enforced by the 
evident adaptation of the revelation to human needs. 
These needs cannot, indeed, prove that God will reveal 
himself; but they can bear impressive testimony to the 
reality of revelation, when once it is made. It matters 
not how adequate the external or historic evidence of 
religious truths may be, they are never clothed for the 
mind with their highest certitude until the heart attests 
their truth in experience. 

We are thus led to the consideration of a final point — 
the answer of the Christian consciousness to the truth 
of the incarnation. In Christ the craving of the soul 
for some embodiment of divinity in a form which it can 
apprehend and construe is met. In him the vagueness 
and abstractness which surround the name of God are, 
in a measure, dispelled, and he is brought near to men. 
His person has been to mankind the most helpful inter- 
pretation of God. In Jesus Christ God is — if we may 
so speak — translated into terms of human life. I do 
not forget that this general statement of what Christ is 
for the Christian heart might be assented to by those 
who hold various conceptions of his person. I cannot 
help thinking, however, that the statement has its 
truest, highest meaning only on the presupposition of 
the proper divinity of Christ. On this view, God has 
come to us. Christ's work is the action of God in re- 
demption. This view clothes his work with an intense 
and solemn reality. When we follow the Christ in his 
teaching, miracles, suffering, and death, we are read- 
ing in terms of human experience what God is doing 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST 121 

for our salvation. I believe that the consensus of the 
Christian world attests the true deity of Christ. We 
need such an authoritative and direct disclosure of God 
as this view of his person presupposes. It is not 
enough that God should send us a prophet, even though 
he be the greatest of all prophets, and bear a fuller and 
clearer message than any other. It is not enough that 
God should send into our world some supernal intelli- 
gence to speak to us of himself and of heaven. It is 
not merely a message from God that we want ; it is 
God himself. For man's salvation is required, not 
merely a proclamation of truths about God, but an 
actual residence and operation of God in human life 
and history. 

Many lines of evidence converge to establish the truth 
of this high conception of our Saviour's person. Such 
a revelation of God in humanity is a fitting culmination 
of the magnificent drama of revelation. The self-testi- 
mony of Jesus, and the teachings of those who had pen- 
etrated most deeply into the knowledge of his person 
and spirit, unite to proclaim the deity of our Lord. To 
the idea of an incarnation of God correspond the in- 
eradicable longings of the human soul to know God in 
some apprehensible form ; and when God is thus re- 
vealed, he is recognized and welcomed by those who 
have the spiritual perception to behold him. Thus do 
the voices o! revelation unite and blend with the testi- 
mony of the Christian faith and experience of the world 
in the confession which is voiced in one of the noblest 
hymns of the ages : — 

Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ; 
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 

The nature and office of the Holy Spirit are pro- 
gressively disclosed in Scripture. In the Old Testa- 
ment, " the Spirit " is hardly more than a name for the 
power or presence of God. In the narrative of the 
Creation, for example, the Spirit of God is represented 
as brooding upon the dark waste of waters (Gen. i. 2). 
The Spirit is the wonder-working power of God. He 
sends forth his Spirit, and men are created (Ps. civ. 30). 
By his Spirit he bestows strength upon heroes, skill 
upon artificers, and the knowledge of his will upon 
prophets. But in the Old Testament the Spirit is not 
regarded as a person, nor is his sanctifying function in 
the life of man to any great extent recognized. 

The completed doctrine of the Spirit, as it appears 
in the Bible, is found in those farewell discourses of 
our Lord to his disciples which are recorded in chap- 
ters xiv. - xvi. of the Gospel of John. 1 

Here the Spirit is described as a person — a self 
distinct from Christ. He is " another Comforter " or 
" Advocate." He is to be sent by the Father in Christ's 
name, and is to bring to the remembrance of the disci- 
ples what Christ has taught. Personal pronouns are 

1 For a critical discussion of the doctrine of the Spirit as there presented, I 
would refer the reader to my treatise on The Johannine Theology, chap. viii. 

122 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 123 

applied to him : " Me shall he glorify " 1 (John xvi. 14) ; 
" He shall teach you all things " (xiv. 26) ; " He shall 
bear witness concerning me" (xv. 26), etc. The acts 
and offices of a person are continually attributed to him, 
such as speaking, interpreting, glorifying Christ, and 
convincing the world of sin. 

The doctrine of the Spirit is thus one of the most 
distinctive elements of the Christian gospel. It was 
most fully elaborated by our Saviour himself in those 
solemn hours just before his passion, when he opened 
the deepest treasures of his mind and heart to his dis- 
ciples. The language in which he sets forth the office 
and work which the Spirit is to discharge is most im- 
pressive. The Spirit is not only to be his representative 
in the world, but is to carry forward and complete his 
work. Jesus regarded his own work as but a beginning 
of the great process of redemption and sanctification. 
The work of the Spirit is invested with special interest 
and importance on account of the significant relations 
into which that work is set. Its relation to Christ's 
own historic manifestation and to the advance of Chris- 
tian truth and life in the world, offers a theme of un- 
surpassed interest to the student of Christian thought 
and history. 

Let us now observe some of the more important 
bearings of the doctrine of the Spirit upon religious 
thought and life. 

This doctrine accentuates the truth of an actual 
presence of God in the world and in human life. Ex- 
perience shows that the thought of mankind concerning 
God tends strongly toward one of two extremes. It 

l The Greek is : eKelvos ipi 5o£aaci. 



124 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tends either toward a pantheistic identification of God 
with nature, or toward a deistic separation of God from 
the world and from human life. The Christian doctrine 
avoids both these extremes with their pernicious conse- 
quences. It conserves the truth which pantheism ex- 
aggerates, by affirming the presence of God in his 
world, while it also conserves the truth which deism 
exaggerates, by maintaining the independence and su- 
premacy of God in his relation to the world. Now, it 
is the former of these truths — that of the living pres- 
ence of God in his world — which the doctrine of the 
Spirit especially emphasizes. This it does, of course, 
with special reference to the religious life of mankind, 
without excluding, however, the elements of truth 
which the Old Testament contains respecting the re- 
lations of the divine Spirit to nature and to the physi- 
cal and mental life of man. 

A living sense of the presence of God, an intense 
conviction of the supernatural, is an essential element 
in all religion which is to have great power in the life 
of men. When that sense of God is lost, religion soon 
loses its hold upon the conscience and the heart. One 
of the greatest elements of power in Roman Catholic 
teaching lies in the stress which is laid upon the divine 
presence in the services and sacraments of the church. 
The devout worshipper feels, as he kneels at her altars 
and participates in her rites, that he is brought into 
contact with the supernatural, and that through the 
mediations of the church real divine power is bestowed 
upon him. In this whole conception of religion there 
lies a truth which must be cherished by those who 
would conserve the reality and value of public worship. 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 125 

The presence of God should not be limited to priestly 
mediations or confined to holy places or holy rites. 
It should be more broadly and spiritually conceived ; 
but it must not be less clearly recognized and felt by 
us than by those who associate it with special religious 
rites. The vivid realization of the presence of God, 
and the reverence which springs out of that realization, 
lie at the foundation of all sincere worship and of all 
deep religious conviction and experience. Religion 
is correlation with God. 

Now, the truth of the Holy Spirit's office and func- 
tion is fitted to fulfil the conditions of a deep and 
strong religious life. It assures us that the religious 
life is a divine reality. It is no mere subjective play of 
our own thought and feeling. Religion involves rela- 
tions with the divine ; real divine powers operate upon 
and within the Christian man. The religious life, ac- 
cording to the doctrine of the Spirit, begins in an im- 
partation from God, and is fostered by the presence 
and power of God. The life of love, and all the virtues 
of the Christian character, spring from fellowship with 
God through the indwelling of the Spirit. The doc- 
trine of the Spirit proclaims that God is very near us, 
and that forces of the spiritual and eternal order 
constantly penetrate our life. This conception makes 
religion intensely real. It is the divine life in man. 
Eternal life is already here ; the world of time and 
sense is swallowed up in the world of the Spirit, and 
life is transfigured by the presence and the love of 
God. 

The bearing of the work of the Spirit upon the re- 
ligious life and character is still more clearly seen 



126 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

when we consider the relation of his work to the his- 
toric mission of Christ. If, now, we turn to those 
chapters of John which contain our Lord's fullest 
teaching upon the work of the Spirit, we observe, first 
of all, that the Spirit is said to come " in his name " 
(John xiv. 26), that is, in continuation of Christ's own 
purpose and work for men. The work of Christ and 
that of the Spirit belong to the same sphere and con- 
template the same great end, — the salvation and sanc- 
tification of men. The Spirit's office represents the 
completion and application of the Saviour's work. 
This carrying forward of our Lord's saving mission the 
Spirit accomplishes by reminding the disciples of what 
Jesus had said, and by interpreting and applying his 
truth so as to bring their lives increasingly under its 
power and into accord with its demands (John xiv. 26 ; 
xvi. 13-15). Thus the mission of the Spirit is accom- 
plished on the basis of the historic work of Christ, and 
is continually realizing, in the actual life of the world, 
the ends which the work of Christ contemplated. 

The doctrine of the Spirit thus clothes the incarna- 
tion with new dignity and significance. The work of 
Christ while on earth is taken up and carried forward 
through all the ages of time, by the interpreting, sanc- 
tifying, and convincing work of the Spirit ; and this 
great process of redemption will never cease till the 
purposes of God in man's salvation shall be complete. 
The appearance of Christ on earth is, in this view, no 
isolated event. It is not a mere incident of ancient 
history. It is a fact of world-wide significance. It 
represents truths and forces which are of permanent 
validity and perpetual power. It does not stand in 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 127 

the dim distance, vague, undefined, and separate from 
the life of to-day. Through the work of the Spirit, 
it is related to every age, and to the life of every man. 
It makes its appeal anew to every generation and to 
every individual soul. The voice of God to man is 
not a mere echo from the Judean hills ; it is a living 
voice speaking directly to the heart through the 
Spirit. 

To all this one may exclaim, " Oh, the mystery 
of it ! " to which we may well respond, " Yes ; but 
the need — the necessity of it!" No religion can 
satisfy the soul of man which consists merely of fine 
ideas and memories. The power of religion must 
rapidly wane when the sense of actual divine powers 
operating in human life is supplanted by a play of 
man's own sentiments and reflections. Now, the truth 
of the Spirit's function stands in perpetual protest 
against this weakening subjectivism in religion ; it 
affirms that the realm of faith is a realm of realities, 
not of phantoms, and that, in accepting Christ as 
our Master, we do not merely adopt a moral ideal, 
but we put our lives under the transforming power 
of a living, present Saviour. 

The doctrine of the Spirit is adapted to the pres- 
ervation of the mystical element in religion. Mys- 
ticism, it is to be admitted, has its own peculiar 
dangers. It may lead, for example, to a disregard 
of the historic facts of Christianity, and to an ex- 
aggerated estimate of personal conviction and expe- 
rience. Its representatives may sometimes confuse 
their own views of religious truth with revelation it- 
self, and may assign to the inner light which the 



128 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

individual enjoys a greater value and authority than 
to the words of the Master himself. But these ten- 
dencies spring from the perversion of a truth. A 
mystical element is essential in religion ; that is to 
say, religion is a matter of inner experience. It in- 
volves a secret, spiritual union with God — an assured 
conviction of fellowship with the divine. The certi- 
tude which is begotten of this conviction is an ele- 
ment of no small importance in our religious life. If 
we cannot call it a source of authority in matters of 
faith, we can, at least, say that no voice of authority 
which speaks to us from without could ever win our 
complete assent without this answer of the heart in 
experience — this inward attestation of the truth of 
revelation. No word of God becomes truly such to 
us except through that appropriation and testing of it 
in our own lives by which it approves itself to be the 
truth. 

Upon the importance of this inner experience, and 
upon the value of the certitude which it begets, the 
doctrine of the Holy Spirit lays strong emphasis. It 
warrants the conviction that the experience of a mul- 
titude of believers in the course of many centuries 
is a source of evidence for the truth of Christianity. 
The religion of Christ is continually proving itself 
true in the life of the individual Christian, and in 
the collective life of the church. 1 If the doctrine of 
the Spirit be true, we are justified in appealing, not 
merely to historical proofs of the divine origin of 
our religion, but to the verification of its truth in 

1 On this subject I would refer the reader to the classic treatise of the late 
Professor Stearns, The Evidence of Christian Experience, New York, 1891. 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 129 

the Christian life of the ages. If the divine Spirit 
does really continue Christ's work in the world, we 
are certainly justified in holding that his testimony 
in the hearts of men is of the utmost importance 
in attesting its divine reality and power. The work 
of the Spirit makes Christianity something living and 
real. It was never more powerfully operative in the 
world than it is to-day. The historic mission of the 
Christ was an interpretation in terms of human speech 
and action, of divine powers and processes, which are 
in constant movement in the life of mankind. 

Many Christian people have felt that it would have 
been an inestimable privilege to live in the time and 
place of the Saviour's incarnation, and to have seen his 
human form and heard his voice. There is reason to be- 
lieve that among the Christians of the apostolic age some 
who had enjoyed this privilege regarded themselves as 
highly favored beyond their brethren. But the words 
of Jesus himself would seem to suggest a different view 
of the matter. He tells his disciples that it is better 
for them that he should depart from them. To possess 
the Spirit whom he will send as his representative is 
better than to have his bodily presence (John xvi. 7). 
He clearly intimates that greater benefits are in store 
for his followers in the day of the Spirit than can be 
theirs in the day of his visible presence. Greater works 
than he has done, greater conquests for the truth, 
greater achievements in righteousness, shall follow his 
departure (John xiv. 12) ; while, under the illumination 
of the Spirit, prayer shall assume new value and power 
(John xvi. 23, 24). There is, indeed, a blessing in store 
for him who sees the Saviour in his beneficent human 



130 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

activity and, on that account, believes on him ; but there 
is a still greater blessing reserved for him who believes 
without having seen (John xx. 29), because such faith 
is, in the nature of the case, freer from all elements of 
human imperfection, and springs from a deeper spiritual 
apprehension of what Christ essentially is. Such a faith 
arises from the soul's sense of its need, and from its per- 
ception of the adaptation of Christ to satisfy that need. 
Such faith, therefore, springs from what is deepest in 
human nature, and lays hold upon what is deepest in 
Christ. It sees Christ as the bread of life to the soul 
because of what he is. It mounts to the very heart of 
Christ, and is satisfied with nothing less than the hiding 
of its life with him in God. Though, like the Apostle 
Paul, it may once have known Christ after the flesh, yet 
as it grows and deepens, it at length knows him so no 
more (2 Cor. v. 16). This beatitude of those who have 
never seen Christ in the flesh Mr. Whittier has inter- 
preted thus : — 

And what if my feet may not tread where he stood, 
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood, 
Nor my eyes see the cross which he bowed him to bear, 
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's altar of prayer? 

Yet, Loved of the Father, thy Spirit is near 
To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here; 
And the voice of thy love is the same even now 
As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow. 

'Oh, the outward hath gone ! — but in glory and power, 
The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour; 
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame 
On the heart's secret altar is burning the same ! 1 

l Palestine, closing stanzas. 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 131 

The observations which have thus far engaged our 
attention lead us to a more direct consideration of the 
question, What is the work of the Spirit in the Chris- 
tian man ? Briefly defined, his work is to foster the 
spiritual life. The Spirit secures in the Christian man 
the increasing realization of the purpose of Christ in 
his redemption. By his gracious and potent influence, 
Christian character is deepened and developed. The 
Christian virtues are the fruit of the Spirit. The enter- 
prises of Christian charity and philanthropy are results 
of his indwelling in the hearts of men. Christian so- 
ciety itself, with all its multiform institutions and organ- 
izations for the betterment of mankind, is a product of 
the Spirit's power, working in the hearts of men, and 
leading them on into obedience to the truth of Christ. 

When we consider the development of Christian life 
in the world, it does not seem so strange that Jesus 
should have declared that in the days of the Spirit 
greater things than he had done should be accom- 
plished by his disciples. Of course, in saying this, he 
assumes that these "greater things" are to be done in 
his name, and in the power of that " other Advocate " 
who is to carry forward and apply his work. It is as 
if Jesus had said, " I have planted the seed of a new life 
in the soil of the world ; it will be for my disciples to 
the end of time to see its growth and to reap its rich 
fruitage." The principles and laws which he taught 
and illustrated in his life have been wrought into the 
thoughts and lives of men by the subtle processes of 
the Spirit ; they have permeated the civilization of the 
most advanced nations, and have left an indelible im- 
press upon their institutions, their education, and their 



132 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

whole conception of the meaning and end of life. 
These are examples of the greater works which belong 
to the dispensation of the Spirit. 

No less wonderful has been the work of the Spirit 
in elevating and enriching the personal lives of men. 
The apostolic age presents striking examples. Look 
at the Apostle Peter. By nature rash, impetuous, and 
fickle, capable of denying his Lord almost while mak- 
ing protestations of love ; capable of an inconsistency 
with his own principles and conduct which called down 
upon him the vehement rebuke of Paul ; yet see what 
he became — the rock-apostle upon whom Christ could, 
in some true sense, build his church, as he said he 
would. Look at John. Like his fellow-apostles he, at 
first, looked for an earthly kingdom which should come 
with pomp and power, and in which the followers of 
the Messiah should hold high places ; he was ready to 
call down fire from heaven to consume the enemies 
of his Master. His views of the person and mission 
of Jesus, and his appreciation of his spiritual truth, 
seem to have been as defective as were those of his fel- 
low-disciples. Yet this is the man who has given us 
that interpretation of the gospel which has been aptly 
called " the heart of Christ." Theologians have gen- 
erally maintained that John has given us the deepest 
views of the divine character and the noblest portrayal 
of the gracious action of God in redemption which 
are to be found in all Christian literature. No other 
New Testament writer has risen to such lofty heights 
of contemplation as has John. This fact found recogni- 
tion in the ancient church in the title "theologian," or 
"divine," that was applied to this apostle; and even 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 133 

more strikingly in the mediaeval church which repre- 
sented the heavenward flight of his spirit by the soar- 
ing of the eagle toward the sun. His character and 
career are a striking fulfilment of the promise of the 
Spirit. The "things of Christ" were wonderfully 
shown to him. He reveals an insight into the mind 
of the Saviour which is unequalled. In his writings are 
found the fullest description and the loftiest doctrine 
of the person of Christ which the New Testament any- 
where presents. For him the work of Christ is divine, 
since Christ himself is divine. The whole historic mis- 
sion of Jesus is grounded in the nature of God, and is as 
all-embracing in its purpose as the love of God which 
gave it birth. What folly to seek to explain the match- 
less splendor of these conceptions apart from the work 
of the Holy Spirit of truth who unsealed the heavenly 
secrets of Christ to the mind of his beloved disciple. 

One great effect of the Holy Spirit's influence is to 
elevate and enrich faith. We have seen that the Spirit 
was to come "in Christ's name," that is, that his whole 
work was to be in line with Christ's work for men. In 
accord with this thought we are told that in the day of 
the Spirit, prayer shall be offered in his name. " Hith- 
erto," said Jesus, "have ye asked nothing in my name " 
(John xvi. 24). He then proceeds to assure his disci- 
ples that in the dispensation of the Spirit they shall ask 
in his name. It is thus evident that, to the mind of 
Jesus, prayer " in his name " involved some higher ele- 
ment, and that this element is the result of the gift and 
illumination of the Spirit. The influence of the Spirit, 
when received and cherished, so fosters in the Christian 
man "the mind of Christ," that he is enabled to pray 



134 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

in accord with the wish and purpose of Christ for him 
— to hold all his desires and petitions subject to the 
thought and will of Christ. This, I think/ must be 
prayer in Christ's name ; prayer, as we may say, in 
Christ himself, in his spirit ; prayer which seeks first of 
all, and most of all, what Christ, as the manifestation 
of the perfect life, is aiming to secure to men. 

Essentially the same truth is presented in the teach- 
ing that the Spirit will bring to the remembrance of 
the disciples what Jesus had said to them (John xiv. 26), 
will guide them into all the truth (John xv. 26), and 
will glorify Christ by taking of his and declaring it unto 
them (John xvi. 14, 15). The Spirit's work deepens and 
completes the work, in the actual lives of men, which is 
provided for and begun by the historic manifestation of 
Jesus. Faith in him thus becomes a larger and richer 
thing through the purifying and elevating influences of 
the Spirit. There were marked limitations and de- 
fects in the faith of the first disciples, which more and 
more disappeared through the power of the Spirit in 
their lives. Prejudices faded away, misconceptions 
were replaced, and misunderstandings vanished under 
the illumination of the Spirit of truth. Faith became 
larger and more spiritual. It was purified from the 
dross of worldly ambition and selfish expectation, and be- 
came more and more a high and pure spiritual union 
with Christ. The defects which were incidental to 
faith on account of the bodily presence of the Saviour 
disappeared. Faith became something more than 
attachment to his human person, and penetrated more 
deeply into the heart of Christ. Thus it came to rest 
upon the truest and deepest grounds. What Jesus had 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 135 

said proved true ; it was expedient for the disciples that 
he should go away, for only by so doing could he open 
the way to this enlargement and deepening of faith ; 
only in this way could the veil of sense which prevented 
them from seeing the deeper things of the gospel be 
taken away, and their eyes be opened to the larger and 
clearer vision of the Christ. On this point Archdeacon 
Hare has well said : " So long as he continued with 
them, they lived by sight, rather than by faith ; and 
sight disturbs faith, and shakes it, and weakens it. 
Sight, as belonging to the world of sense, partakes of 
its frailties and imperfections. To put forth all its 
power, faith must be purely and wholly faith." * 

Another element in the doctrine of the Spirit is that, 
through the development of Christian life and the ele- 
vation of men's ideals, he is to convince the world of its 
sinfulness and of its need of Christ (John xvi. 8— 1 1). 
In the presence of the Spirit's work, the world stands 
convicted of its sin and of its exposure to the divine 
judgment. In the light which the same divine saving 
process throws upon history, the work of Christ, and 
the principles and laws of life which he enthroned, are 
powerfully vindicated. This is the conviction of the 
world " concerning righteousness," of which Jesus 
speaks. This convincing or conviction of the world 
has thus two sides. Its negative side is the demon- 
stration of the world's sin ; its positive side is the vin- 
dication of the Christian ideal of life. 

The moral history of mankind is perpetually fulfilling 
these predictions of Jesus. Imperfectly as the motives 
and principles of Christ have been embodied in Chris- 

1 The Mission of the Comforter, p. 140. 



136 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tian society, they have demonstrated their divineness 
and their elevating and transforming power in the life 
of the world. Christian character and Christian institu- 
tions — faulty as they have ever been — have, by their 
very presence and effects in the world, pronounced the 
verdict of condemnation upon the principles of selfish- 
ness and sordidness which characterize the unchristian 
world. The righteousness which Christ defined and 
exemplified — the life of unselfish love — is triumph- 
antly vindicated before the world by its appeal to all 
that is best in human nature, and by its inherent beauty 
and beneficent effects wherever it holds sway over the 
minds and hearts of men. Directly or indirectly, the 
world is compelled to confess the peerless superiority 
of Christian righteousness. 

This practical acknowledgment by the world of its 
own sinfulness, and of the excellence and desirableness 
of the Christian ideal of life, must, I think, become 
more and more general and explicit, as the achieve- 
ments of the Spirit in personal life and in society be- 
come greater. As civilization advances, as the tone of 
human life is heightened, and as the grosser elements 
of human nature are increasingly subjected to the 
sceptre of reason and love by the power and working of 
the divine Spirit, the verdict of Christ upon human 
sinfulness will be reaffirmed and justified, and the con- 
ception of life which he presented will shine out with 
unique and peculiar splendor. It is the part of Chris- 
tian faith to believe that the movements of the ages are 
the processes of the Spirit, and that the great enter- 
prises of education and reform, of charity and benefi- 
cence, which characterize our time are among the fruits 



THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 137 

of those divine influences which mysteriously penetrate 
our life from God. It is the privilege of Christian hope 
to believe that these mighty tides of spiritual power 
will continue to rise and sweep over our world, and that 
results, in fulfilment of the Saviour's promises, of which 
we can now but faintly dream, are embraced within the 
purpose of Almighty Love, and are held in store for our 
race. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FACT OF SIN 

In the foregoing studies we have dealt mainly with 
theology in the narrower sense of that term ; that is, 
with the Christian doctrine of the nature and action of 
God. We turn now to the doctrine of man. It might 
be thought that in turning away from the study of God 
to that of man, we should emerge from a region of mys- 
tery and uncertainty into a realm where we could pro- 
ceed with much confidence and certainty. And this is 
true in so far as, in this transition, we enter the world 
of direct personal knowledge and experience. But 
how soon are the limits of this knowledge reached ! A 
little inquiry suffices to show us that we know too 
little of ourselves to solve with confidence the problems 
of our own being. We consequently find that there 
is not only as great a difference of opinion among 
scholars in regard to man as in regard to God, but that 
there are problems quite as perplexing in the realm of 
anthropology as in that of theology proper. 

One side of our human nature we have already con- 
sidered. We saw that it was a fundamental assump- 
tion of Christian teaching that man is morally kindred 
to God, and that he therefore possesses by his very 
nature the capacity to know, love, and serve God. But 
there is another side of human nature upon which 

138 



THE FACT OF SIN 139 

Christianity lays great stress — man is sinful. Our re- 
ligion constantly assumes the fact of sin. The proce- 
dure of God in revealing himself to men is determined 
by the fact of sin. Christ came into the world to save 
sinners. The Christian gospel is a message and means 
of salvation from sin. That gospel would certainly be 
a very different thing from what it now is, were it not 
for the presence of sin in the world. 

Many theologians hold that sin was the sole occasion 
of Christ's coming into the world. Others suppose 
that, even apart from sin, there would have been so 
great a need, on man's part, of such a revelation of 
God as we have in Christ, as to make it reasonable to 
believe that the incarnation would have taken place. 
No one, of course, can give a certain answer to such 
a problem. I can conceive of reasons why Christ 
should have come into the world, even if sin had not 
invaded human life ; but I cannot imagine that, if such 
had been the case, some of the most significant ele- 
ments of our present Christianity would be in exist- 
ence. The experiences of Christ would necessarily 
have been very different. His death, had it taken 
place, could not have happened at the hands of sinners 
and for sin. Whatever we may think in regard to 
what might have been, it is certain that God's action 
in redemption through Christ has been directed and 
shaped in view of sin, and that the fact of sin is there- 
fore very fundamental in that whole view of the world 
and of human life which Christianity presupposes. 

I have purposely taken as the title of this chapter 
"The Fact of Sin." I mean by this expression to in- 
timate that what is practically important is to see how 



140 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

Christianity regards the actual sinfulness of men. It 
is less essential to frame a formal definition of sin, or 
to adopt a theory of its origin, than it is to discern the 
Christian view of its inner nature and effects. 

Most Christian thinkers now agree that the word 
" selfishness " best describes the nature of sin. Sin 
is the assertion of the human will against the divine. 
In scriptural language it is the " transgression of the 
law," or "lawlessness" (i John iii. 4). This viola- 
tion of the divine law is of the nature of selfishness 
in the most comprehensive sense of that term. As 
all virtue consists in harmony with the " good and holy 
and acceptable will of God," so all moral evil consists 
in disharmony with God's will. Now, since the moral 
nature of God is love, all goodness is comprehended in 
love or in likeness to God. In like manner, all sin 
is comprehended in the opposite of love, which is self- 
ishness. 

It may not seem evident at first thought that selfish- 
ness is the opposite of love. When, however, we con- 
sider that love in man consists in the supreme choice 
of God as the object of his desire and service, it ap- 
pears that sin consists in the choice of self instead of 
God. Sin is self-will in some of its forms, and leads 
inevitably to self-righteousness and self-glorification. 
Love seeks to secure our own true good and the true 
good of all other men, by desiring and striving to pro- 
mote obedience and likeness to God. Selfishness wil- 
fully breaks away from God, and seeks its own gratifica- 
tion and indulgence. Selfishness is, therefore, radically 
different from self-love. Jesus assumes in his teaching 
that men ought to love themselves. They are accord- 



THE FACT OF SZJV 141 

ingly commanded to love their neighbors as them- 
selves. Love of self is not only right in itself, but 
it is so necessary that without it love of others would 
be quite impossible. Self-love, in the true sense of 
the word love, is the choice and pursuit of one's own 
best good in accord with the will of God, which is ever 
ruled by love. Selfishness, on the contrary, ignores 
God, and finds its only law in man's own will and 
pleasure. 

It is now readily seen how self-love differs from self, 
ishness. They differ chiefly in the objects which they 
seek. Selfishness seeks to further personal ends which 
are not connected with the true interests of life, or 
which, at least, are not so sought and pursued as to 
further those interests. Selfishness operates in the 
sphere of the inferior concerns of life. It aims at self- 
gratification, rather than self-discipline ; at ends that 
terminate on self, rather than at those which, in turn, 
become means for the benefit of others as well as self. 
Self-love and selfishness may, in certain cases, seek the 
same objects ; but they seek them with such different 
motives, and in such a different spirit, that the two 
qualities are most clearly distinguished. Suppose two 
men are seeking the same office or position. The 
altogether predominant, perhaps exclusive, thought of 
one is that the position will bring to him some personal 
distinction and benefits which he can enjoy with and 
for himself. He sees the place and all the opportunities 
connected with it only as related to his own comfort, or 
the gratification of his personal ambition. This is the 
temper of selfishness. Another man makes an equally 
earnest effort for the place. But his thought of it is 



142 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

that it is a post of usefulness, a position of influence. 
It gives personal distinction, to which he is not insen- 
sible ; but what is far more and better, it gives oppor- 
tunities for service, for the development of the man's 
own character, and thus for the exertion of wide and 
good influence. This man has his own interests at 
heart too ; but in how different a way ! And what 
a different range of interests is uppermost in his 
mind ! He has self-love, because he strives to put 
himself where he can be the most of a man possible, 
and do his best work ; but his interest in himself, 
being of the nature of real love, cannot aim chiefly at 
the lower ends, or stop with the consideration of mere 
personal aims, but necessarily goes out to embrace 
other lives, and tends constantly upward toward the 
lofty ideal of Jesus, the making of others the objects 
of as eager an interest as that which we ought to feel 
in our own true welfare. Who can doubt that, in the 
two cases supposed, there would be a world-wide dif- 
ference in the ways in which these men would admin- 
ister and use the position so sought, and in the personal 
influence which they would exert in it ? 

With what different motives and spirit are men doing 
the same tasks all around us ! After all, it is the ends 
which they have in view which make the greatest dif- 
ference in the lives of men. Two men make money 
side by side at the same counter. What different 
things that money-making means to them ! To one 
it means selfishness ; to the other love, — self-love, no 
doubt, but also love to others, for self-love never goes 
alone. Self-love, from its very nature, involves and 
leads to love for others ; since we soon find that we 



THE FACT OF SIN 143 

cannot seek and promote our true well-being in isola- 
tion from others. Selfishness is the principle of isola- 
tion ; love is the principle of society. Its motto is, 
" We are members one of another." 

There is a radical difference between these two qual- 
ities. Selfishness belittles life and narrows the world 
by making the individual the measure of all things ; 
self-love ennobles life by making the individual a part 
of a social order, in which men have mutual rights and 
duties, and are bound together by common interests. 
Thus selfishness drags the world down to its own little 
measure, while self-love lifts the individual up upon the 
plane of universal human interests, and becomes the in- 
spiration to doing unto others as we should wish others 
to do unto us. And all love, whether to self or to 
others, has its source and spring in our moral kinship 
to God, and its only perfect norm in the love of him 
who made us in his own image, and made us for himself. 

Sin is a perversion — a perversion of the will from 
its true harmony with the will of God, and a conse- 
quent perversion of the whole character. Sin is dis- 
harmony with the divine order ; it is failure on man's 
part to realize the true idea of his nature and destiny. 
It is significant that the root meaning of the biblical 
words for sin is — missiiig the mark. They suggest that 
sin is failure, misdirected effort, perverted choice and 
action. It follows from this conception that sin does 
not belong to human nature as such ; it is alien to the 
original, divine idea of man. It arises only from the 
perverse use of human powers. The narrative of crea- 
tion in Genesis asserts that all the works of God — in- 
cluding man — were, in their divine idea and constitution, 



144 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

"very good." "And God saw everything that he had 
made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. i. 31). 

The theory has been widely held that sin is an in- 
cident of man's finiteness ; that it is a name for the 
metaphysical imperfection of human nature. The ten- 
dency of this view is to ascribe to sin a purely nega- 
tive character ; to make it a mere absence of good. In 
this view sin consists only in imperfection, ignorance, 
or mistake. It is an inevitable accompaniment of moral 
development. The very idea of progress in goodness 
implies the existence, at any given point in the process, 
of imperfection or sin. The cure for sin, then, is en- 
lightenment or culture. To substantially this conclu- 
sion many current theories of evolution inevitably lead. 
Sin is incidental to man's moral development out of 
savagery into civilization and culture. It is the sur- 
vival in human nature of the animal impulses and 
passions which have not yet been eliminated in the 
process of moral evolution. This view easily allies 
itself with the theory that sin is inherent in the body 
or flesh. Some Christian theologians have adopted 
this opinion, and have sought to defend it on biblical 
grounds. The Apostle Paul frequently speaks of the 
flesh as contrary to man's better part, the spirit or 
reason, and describes it as a sinful power or principle. 
At first sight the view appears very plausible that Paul 
regarded sin as consisting in the impulses and passions 
of the flesh. This was a method of thought concerning 
sin which was current in Greek philosophy ; and some 
scholars have, with considerable plausibility, sought 
to prove that Paul adopted it and elaborated it in his 
epistles. 



THE FACT OF SIN 145 

A close analysis of his teaching on this point, how- 
ever, will suffice to show that the apostle distinguishes 
between sin and the flesh, despite the fact that he does 
so closely associate them. The course of his thought 
on the subject, so far as we can trace it in his epistles, 
seems to have been something like this : The flesh is 

— as so commonly represented in the Old Testament 

— a symbol of man's weakness, both physical and 
moral. Viewing it as a symbol of moral weakness, it 
naturally stands for those impulses, appetites, and pas- 
sions which reside in the body. In a conspicuous 
degree do these impulses act as occasions and incen- 
tives to sin. Thus sin may be said to have its special 
seat and sphere of manifestation in the flesh. In this 
way sin and the flesh are closely allied, and may, within 
certain limits, be spoken of as synonymous. " The 
flesh " becomes a name for man's unrenewed nature 
in general, because the sinful man is one in whom 
the natural desires, rather than the spiritual nature, 
are dominant. Sin is not, however, with Paul strictly 
synonymous with the flesh. Sin dwells in the flesh, 
it thrives in the soil of carnal appetites and inclina- 
tions, but it is itself distinguishable from the flesh. 
Its origin is not in the flesh, and in its essential nature 
it does not pertain to it. It has its origin in the will, 
and its seat in the permanent preferences which are 
the result of the will's action. The Apostle Paul, 
and the Bible generally, treat sin, not as a physical, 
but as a voluntary affair. Sin belongs to the realm 
of action, choice, and character. 

It is impossible to reconcile the Christian doctrine 
of sin with any pantheistic theory which regards moral 



146 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

evil as a metaphysical imperfection, or with any evo- 
lutionary philosophy which treats it as a defect inci- 
dental to the development of the race. The divergence 
between these views of sin and that which pervades 
the Bible does not relate merely or mainly to the 
doctrine of the fall, but to the nature and guilt of 
sin viewed as a matter of history and experience. 
According to the Bible, the correlative of sin is guilt. 
If sin is a mere privation of good, if it is mere mis- 
take, misconception, or natural imperfection, there need 
be, there can be, no sense of guilt on account of it. 
Christ and the biblical writers, however, teach that 
sin is guilty, and that the human conscience attests 
its guilt. The sense of blameworthiness on account 
of sin may, of course, be relatively obscured ; but the 
very fact that the feeling of guilt asserts itself when 
the conscience is allowed its normal utterance, is proof 
that guilt is the natural concomitant of sin. The con- 
fessions of sin throughout the Bible breathe language 
which springs from the sense of guilt. The prodigal 
son did not merely acknowledge misapprehension and 
mistake. His language was : " I have sinned against 
heaven, and in thy sight : I am no more worthy to be 
called thy son" (Luke xv. 18). 

Every prayer for forgiveness involves a confession of 
the guilt of sin. The very idea of the divine mercy or 
grace involves as its correlative the blameworthiness 
of mankind. The publican's prayer, " God be merciful 
to me a sinner" (Luke xviii. 13), couples together in 
their inseparable relations the idea of God as merciful 
and of sin as guilty. One further illustration may be 
drawn from the Psalmist's prayer and confession : — 



THE FACT OF SIN 147 

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness : 
According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my trans- 
gressions. 
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, 
And cleanse me from my sin. 
For I acknowledge my transgressions: 
And my sin is ever before me. 
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, 
And done this evil in thy sight : 
That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, 
And be clear when thou judgest (Ps. li. 1-4). 

To the guilt which attaches to sin, the common con- 
sciousness of mankind, as well as the Bible, bears wit- 
ness. It finds ample recognition in literature. I will 
adduce two or three illustrations. Victor Hugo, in Les 
Miserables} pauses in the midst of his narrative to take 
a glance into the conscience of Jean Valjean. He says : 
" There is nothing more terrifying than this species of 
contemplation. The mental eye can nowhere find 
greater brilliancy or greater darkness than within man ; 
it cannot dwell on anything which is more formidable, 
complicated, mysterious, or infinite. There is a specta- 
cle grander than the ocean, and that is the conscience ; 
there is a spectacle grander than the sky, and it is the 
interior of the soul." Hugo proceeds to describe the ef- 
forts of Valjean to escape the terrors of remorse which 
darkened his soul : " He rose from his chair and bolted 
the door. He was afraid lest something might enter, 
and he barricaded himself against the possible. A mo- 
ment later, he blew out his light, for it annoyed him, 
and he fancied that he might be overseen. By whom ? 
Alas, what he wanted to keep out had entered ; what he 
wished to blind was looking at him ! It was his con- 

1 Ch. li. A Tempest in a Brain. 



148 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

science, that is to say, God." Commenting on this ex- 
perience, our author adds : " It is no more possible to 
prevent thought from reverting to an idea than it is to 
prevent the sea from returning to the shore. With 
the sailor this is called the tide, with the guilty it is 
called remorse ; God upheaves the soul as well as the 
ocean." 

The many powerful passages in which Shakespeare 
illustrates the saying which he puts into the mouth of 
Hamlet, that " conscience does make cowards of us all," 
are doubtless familiar to the reader. I will quote but 
one. Macbeth, led on by " vaulting ambition," has ac- 
complished the murder of Duncan. When the deed is 
done, he finds, as he had feared, that " even-handed 
justice commends the ingredients of his poisoned chal- 
ice to his own lips." Afterward in his chamber in com- 
pany with Lady Macbeth he hears a knocking and 
exclaims : — 

Whence is that knocking? 
How is't with me, when every noise appals me? 
What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes. 
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather 
The multitudinous seas incarnadine, 
Making the green one red. 1 

The fact that sin pertains to the will involves the 
conclusion that sin does not consist merely of isolated 
sinful acts. There is such a thing as a state of sin- 
fulness, a sinful character. Jesus taught that in God's 
sight a man may be guilty of murder, even if he does 
not commit the overt act. Hate is the essence of mur- 

l Macbeth, Act ii., Scene 2. 



THE FACT OF SIN 149 

der, as lust is the essence of unchastity. Christian 
teaching accords with the verdict of the human con- 
science in affirming that sin inheres in the charac- 
ter, in the disposition. Out of the sinful heart are the 
issues of the sinful life in specific evil acts. The phi- 
losopher Kant said : " Nothing can possibly be con- 
ceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be 
called good without qualification, except a good will." * 
If this statement is true, its converse must also be 
true, that nothing can be called evil without qualifica- 
tion, except an evil will. 

It is the fact that sin inheres in the will, and thus 
has its seat in the character, which lends such great 
significance to the law and power of habit. We may 
define habit as the facility which comes from the fre- 
quent repetition of an action. The law of habit, then, 
means that the oftener a given moral action is repeated, 
the greater becomes the facility with which it is done, 
and the greater the inclination to do it. This law is a 
beneficent one, since it holds as well with regard to 
good actions as to evil. The law of habit helps the 
good man as much as it harms the bad man. It is 
not the law which is to blame for men's sins ; it is the 
way in which men, by evil choices and actions, per- 
mit the law to confirm them in the commission of sin. 
" The facility with which we commit sin," says Augus- 
tine, "is a punishment for sins already committed." 
This is but to say that every evil choice or action 
passes into character, and makes its contribution to our 
permanent preferences. The most terrible penalty of 
sin is the sinful character which sin engenders. The 

1 T. K. Abbott's edition of Kant's Theory of Ethics, page 9. 



150 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

most fearful consequences of sin are its moral conse- 
quences in the life of him who commits it. 

It is the operation of the law of evil habit which 
creates what is called in theology "moral inability" 
to choose and do the right. The deeper one descends 
into the sinful life, the less desirous and the less able 
is he to return from it. Evil habit multiplies its power 
over the sinner as the banyan-tree strengthens its hold 
upon the earth. This tree drops its roots from its 
branches as well as from its trunk. These strike 
into the ground until every limb is held as with a 
rod of iron. Many of these roots grow until they at 
length become as large as the original trunk, which 
thus becomes lost in the multitude of new growths. 
Once the tree might have been transplanted with ease ; 
but who could uproot and remove the tangled forest 
which it has at length become ? It is thus that evil 
habit expands itself, and strengthens its sway over the 
whole scope of human activities and powers, until at 
length every faculty is held within its grasp, and the 
work of change becomes next to impossible. Every 
evil choice is one more blow of the hammer by which 
the soul forges the chains of evil thought and habit 
which bind it to earthliness and sin. 

But it may be asked, Does this "moral inability," 
which evil habit induces, mean the loss of free will ? 
It means the fixity of the will in a certain direction 
or line of action. There is nothing outside the will 
of the worst of men which is compelling him to go 
on in his evil courses ; it is his own fixed choice ; it 
is the character which is in his own will which is 
urging him forward. The will of man is free within 



THE FACT OF SIN 151 

the limits of its own state. The best of men is free 
to commit the worst crime so far as any preventing 
cause outside himself is concerned. When we say he 
cannot ', we mean he will not. His will is so con- 
firmed in goodness that v/e rightly say it is morally 
impossible for him to do the evil act in question. 
The case is similar with the wicked man. His will, 
by a long course of wrong choice and action, has 
practically restricted its own moral liberty. Desire 
for the good is so weakened that the will spontane- 
ously takes a wrong direction. This truth, concern- 
ing the power of evil habit to confirm the will in a 
given course of action, and to weaken the motives 
which would incline it to pursue the contrary course, 
Whittier has strikingly depicted in his poem entitled 
The Answer, two stanzas of which I quote : — 

Forever round the Mercy-seat 

The guiding lights of Love shall burn; 

But what if, habit-bound, thy feet 
Shall lack the will to turn? 

What if thine eyes refuse to see, 

Thine ear to Heaven's free welcome fail, 

And thou a willing captive be, 
Thyself thy own dark jail? 

We have now reviewed the main points in the Chris- 
tain doctrine of sin. I apprehend that with the state- 
ments thus far made most Christian thinkers would 
substantially agree. The Christian consciousness rec- 
ognizes sin as guilty ; that is, as incurring the divine 
displeasure, and as needing the divine forgiveness. It 
recognizes that sin is more than the sum of specific 



152 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

sins ; that it pervades the whole character, and corrupts 
the springs of motive and feeling. When, however, we 
pass beyond the more obvious teaching of Scripture ana 
the common verdict of experience on these and allied 
points, we find little agreement among theologians. 
Concerning the origin of sin, its relation to the fall of 
Adam described in Genesis, its relation to the nature 
which we bring with us into the world, and the man- 
ner in which it spreads itself abroad among mankind, 
the widest differences of theory prevail. We might 
leave out of view all these questions on the ground that 
our purpose contemplates the study of our various 
themes chiefly from the standpoint of Christian experi- 
ence. It will be useful, however, to enter into the 
consideration of them far enough to make it apparent 
that they stand on quite different grounds from those 
facts of life on which the elements of the doctrine of 
sin thus far described are seen to rest. 

I shall first briefly describe the two historic theories 
which have prevailed in Calvinistic theology respect- 
ing what is called " original sin ; " that is, the native or 
inherited sinfulness of mankind. The first theory to 
be noticed is that which was elaborated by Augustine 
(354-430) under the influence of Neoplatonic philos- 
ophy. It maintains that all men are guilty for Adam's 
sin because all men committed it. All mankind was 
seminally present in Adam, and therefore sinned when 
he sinned. Human nature had not yet been distributed 
into individuals. Adam was the race, and hence the 
race sinned in him. Human nature in its totality is 
therefore sinful and guilty. One of the maxims of 
this theory is, " Sin is a nature, and that nature is 



THE FACT OF SIN 153 

guilt." The principal American treatises on doctrinal 
theology which advocate this theory are those of Dr. 
W. G. T. Shedd and Dr. A. H. Strong. The second 
theory to be noticed had its origin in Holland in the 
seventeenth century, and is called the Federal or Cove- 
nant theory. This theory denies that all men really 
participated in Adam's sin, and maintains that, ac- 
cording to a covenant with Adam, God made him the 
representative of mankind in general, and that Adam, 
therefore, was to stand or fall for the race. He fell, 
and the guilt of his fall is therefore imputed to those 
whom he represented. In this view men did not sin 
in Adam actually, but only putatively or represen- 
tatively. The principal defenders of this theory in this 
country are the Princeton theologians. 

A distinguished German theologian, Dr. Julius 
Miiller (i 801-1878), in a masterly treatise on the 
Christian doctrine of sin, has propounded a different 
theory of man's native sinfulness. He laid down the 
following principles : Guilt can only attach to personal 
sin ; it cannot be inherited \ it cannot be imputed. At 
the same time, we must hold to the organic unity of the 
race ; and all are sinful and guilty, as a matter of fact, 
and that from the very beginning of moral action. 
Where, then, is that wrong self-determination of all to 
be found in which guilt took its rise ? Augustine an- 
swers, in Adam ; but his descendants had no personal, 
conscious existence in Adam, and therefore could not 
responsibly choose and act in him. This answer can- 
not establish the existence in Adam of that self-decis- 
ion which is the necessary basis of guilt. The Federal 
theory answers, Guilt is not correlative to self-deter- 



154 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

mination, but to God's imputation ; but this view 
obscures the very nature of guilt, and directly violates 
our first principle, that guilt attaches only to personal 
transgression. Miiller concludes that we can only ex- 
plain the universality and the guilt of sin by suppos- 
ing that men existed in some previous state of being 
in which they sinned, and from which, therefore, they 
brought a corrupt nature into the world. To most per- 
sons this theory will seem like carrying the problem 
to the utmost bounds of thought, and throwing it over 
into the abyss of absolute mystery. 

The New England theologians also devoted them- 
selves energetically to this problem. They elaborated 
the view that by virtue of their race-connection with 
Adam all men had inherited a corruption or deprava- 
tion of nature, which, however, could not be called, in 
the strict sense, sinful, and on account of which alone 
men were not condemned. They recognized the princi- 
ple of heredity as affecting the moral life, but held that 
men were not responsible or guilty for inherited ten- 
dency, but only for their own personal, voluntary action. 
This theory involved the denial that infant children 
were sinners, and were objects of God's wrath from the 
very moment of birth. 

It is beyond my purpose to discuss these theories ; 
since they do not, for the most part, belong to the 
Christian doctrine of sin considered as a matter of 
experience. My object in referring to them is to make 
it appear that the Christian and scriptural doctrine 
concerning real sin as known in experience, and as 
everywhere operative in human life, is to be broadly 
distinguished from these discordant and unverifiable 



THE FACT OF SIN 155 

speculations respecting " original sin " and " native de- 
pravity." I will only add the following suggestions in 
regard to them : — 

I. There is very little in Scripture which, on any 
method of interpretation, can be made to bear upon 
these theories ; and it may well be doubted whether, on 
a critical and historical view of Scripture, there is any 
teaching therein respecting " original sin." The the- 
ories which have been current in the church all rest 
upon the assumption that the narrative of the first sin 
in Genesis is strictly historical. Biblical criticism, how- 
ever, has rendered this supposition more than doubtful. 
The legends of the early chapters of Genesis are widely 
different from historical narratives ; and their meaning 
is to be found, not by regarding them as history, but by 
observing the general religious conceptions which they 
embody and symbolize. But even if theology continues 
to regard these stories as history, there is little scrip- 
tural support for any doctrine of original sin. The 
principal proof-texts are : " As in Adam all die, so also 
in Christ shall all be made alive " (i Cor. xv. 22) ; " As 
through one man sin entered into the world, and death 
by sin," etc. (Rom. v. 1 2 sq.) ; and, " And were by 
nature children of wrath, even as the rest " (Eph. ii. 
3). 1 The context shows that the last of these passages 
refers, not to inherited sinfulness as such, but to sin- 
fulness which had been acquired through actual diso- 
bedience. The second passage refers, I believe, to a 
sinning of all men when Adam sinned, but in a figura- 
tive sense, as all Christians are said to have been cruci- 

1 For a critical consideration of these passages I would refer the reader to 
my Pauline Theology, in loco. 



156 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

fled with Christ. The first passage, no doubt, assumes 
a natural relation of sinful humanity with Adam, but 
neither states nor implies anything as to the nature of 
that relation. 

2. There is a great and mysterious fact which the 
various theories of " original sin," seek to interpret, — a 
race-connection, by virtue of which the individual shares 
in the physical and moral consequences of the life of 
his progenitors. This fact the Bible recognizes. The 
passages in which it is recognized theology has com- 
monly interpreted in accord with preconceived theories 
respecting God and the world. It has thus far taken 
little account of the natural law of heredity, concerning 
which science has taught us so much in recent years. 
" Original sin " has been chiefly studied by theologians 
as a matter of pure theory. An acute critic, himself an 
accomplished theologian, reviewing one of the ablest 
and most famous of our " bodies of divinity," expresses 
his regret that its author " borrows so little from the 
scientific discoveries of our age to confirm the teachings 
of the Bible. In fact [continues the reviewer], he 
seems to prefer theology pure and simple to theology 
allied with science. The teachings of the Bible, inter- 
preted by his own exegesis, are more conclusive to him 
than the same truths interpreted and buttressed by 
natural laws." 1 

The transmission of sinful tendencies is a mystery 
which there is no reason to believe that human wisdom 
will ever be able to resolve ; but I believe that much 
more light will yet be thrown upon it by the study of 

l From an article entitled " Original Sin and Evolution," by Professor 
Heman Lincoln in The Independent, Sept. 2, 1880. 



THE FACT OF SIN 157 

the natural laws of heredity, than it has hitherto re- 
ceived from centuries of a priori speculation and equally 
a priori exegesis. Even if the study of heredity should 
finally teach us but little concerning the mystery, the 
little which it does teach will have the advantage of 
agreeing — so far as it goes — with the facts of life. I 
do not believe that what we shall learn from actual 
observation and experience, that is, from the study of 
God's action in natural law, will serve to baffle all 
rational interpretation, and to perplex our moral intui- 
tions, as do the theories that we come into the world 
under the curse of God on account of a sin which we 
committed centuries before we were born, or that God 
condemns us for the sin of a representative in whose 
selection we had no share. 



CHAPTER X 

THE ATONEMENT 

The doctrine of the atonement is the correlate of the 
doctrine of sin. But for the fact of sin, there could be 
no atonement. It follows that the conception which 
one entertains concerning sin will powerfully affect 
his notions of atonement. If sin is merely an inci 
dent of man's moral development, if it is a mere de- 
fect or imperfection which is due to our finiteness or 
imprisonment in the flesh, there can be no atonement 
for it. Unless sin involves guilt, it requires no atone- 
ment, since it requires no forgiveness. The word 
" atonement " denotes the method of God's action in 
providing for the forgiveness of sin. Any theory, 
therefore, which eliminates from sin the element of 
guilt renders forgiveness unnecessary, and logically 
involves a denial of atonement. 

There is another conception which must always 
strongly influence the doctrine of atonement ; that is, 
the idea of God. A glance at the religions of the 
world serves to show that the conception of the Deity 
which is cherished by any people powerfully affects 
all their thoughts respecting the way in which his 
favor is to be procured, and the way in which he 
manifests that favor toward mankind. The same prin- 
ciple holds true in Christianity. If, for example, it 

158 



THE ATONEMENT 159 

be said that God's nature is primarily strict and un- 
bending justice, so that he must mete out to all sin 
its full desert of penalty, then when it is asked, How 
does he provide for the forgiveness of sin ? the answer 
must be, By inflicting upon a substitute for man the 
full penalty due the world's sin. In this view, God 
must punish sin. He cannot forgive it until he has 
first punished it. If, then, he is not to punish, but 
to forgive it, in the case of the men who have com- 
mitted it, he must punish it vicariously in a substitute 
who takes the place of sinful man and endures his 
punishment. 

Suppose, on the other hand, that the divine nature 
be conceived as benevolence. In that case, nothing 
will be said of expiation or of the satisfaction of divine 
justice in order to forgiveness. The atonement will 
be treated as a method which God adopts for recon- 
ciling man to himself by a special exhibition of his 
mercy, and by furnishing special motives to men to 
repent and forsake their sins. The first theory, built 
on the conception of retributive justice as the funda- 
mental attribute of God, speaks constantly of Christ 
as enduring the penalty of human sin and thereby 
appeasing the wrath of God. Its great words are — 
expiation, satisfaction, penal suffering, etc. The second 
view, proceeding from the perpetual willingness of God 
to forgive sin, speaks of the vicarious love and sym- 
pathy of Christ, and of God as winning mankind to 
himself through this consummate revelation of his eter- 
nal goodness. 

I have briefly sketched these two conceptions of the 
redeeming work of Christ in order to show how the 



160 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

idea of God necessarily colors and moulds our notions 
of atonement. This fact will illustrate the assertion 
which was made in an earlier chapter, that nothing 
is so important in all Christian thinking as a correct 
conception of the character of God. In its application 
to our present subject the idea of God which is cher- 
ished makes all the difference between the view that 
God's wrath was appeased, and that he was made will- 
ing to forgive sin through the endurance by Christ in 
man's stead of the full penalty of human sin, and the 
view that the work of Christ is, not the removal of an 
obstacle in the divine mind to the forgiveness of sin, 
but a proclamation that there is not, and never was, 
such an obstacle. 

Leaving aside for the present these illustrations, let 
us endeavor to see what the import of the doctrine of 
the atonement really is. Let us take as our starting- 
point the truth that God is love. This love, which is a 
name for the moral nature of God, includes in its es- 
sence the two elements of self-communication and self- 
preservation. The impulse to give and to bless we call 
benevolence ; the impulse to maintain the uprightness 
or dignity of the divine nature we call righteousness. 
Benevolence is the self-impartation ; righteousness is 
the self-respect of perfect love. Both are equally 
essential in love ; both are, therefore, equally funda- 
mental in God. Any effort to exalt one to the dis- 
paragement of the other involves a perversion, and 
mars the conception of the divine perfectness. A 
synthesis of the qualities which these two complemen- 
tary concepts include is absolutely essential in theology. 
When the process of analysis is carried so far as to 



THE ATONEMENT 161 

separate elements of character in whose absolute unity 
and harmony the very perfection of God consists, one- 
sided and extreme theories are sure to be the result. 
When, for example, it is said that justice is the funda- 
mental attribute of God (meaning that benevolence is 
less fundamental in his nature), the way is opened for 
the treatment of all the themes of theology from the 
standpoint of a purely legal conception of the divine 
nature and action. The extremes to which this ten- 
dency has been carried may be seen in the legalism 
of the late Jewish theology, and in the more extreme 
forms of Protestant hyper-orthodoxy. No less one- 
sided are the results of the opposite position. When 
the love of God is conceived of as mere good-nature, 
the whole system of Christian doctrine is emasculated ; 
sin is really blameworthy no longer ; the wrath of God 
against impiety and injustice disappears. 

God is absolutely holy, righteous, or just. Were 
he, at any moment, or in any degree, unrighteous, he 
would not be God. All that he does is righteously 
done. If he punishes, he punishes righteously ; if he 
forgives, he forgives in strict accord with righteousness, 
and in a way which manifests and vindicates his right- 
eousness. So also is God perfectly benevolent. It is 
not optional with him to be benevolent or not. He 
can no more cease to be benevolent than he can cease 
to exist. His goodness is as fundamental in his essence 
as it is eternal. I can no more think of God as choos- 
ing for an instant not to be benevolent or merciful, 
than I can think of the abrogation of the moral law or 
the extinction of God himself. " His mercy endureth 
forever." Any theology which denies this principle 



162 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

(and whole systems have been built upon a denial of it) 
issues in a monstrous caricature of God. 

These considerations are of the utmost importance 
in their bearing upon the doctrine of atonement. The 
idea that the justice of God is more fundamental in his 
nature than his love, yields, as I have already pointed 
out, a very different conception of the work of redemp- 
tion from that which flows from the theory that justice 
and benevolence are equally essential in God. On this 
latter view the motive of the atonement is found in 
that fundamental and changeless benevolence which is 
an element of the divine perfection. It appears to me 
to be very difficult, on the other theory, to give any ra- 
tional account of the origin of the atonement. If mercy 
is only a secondary and subordinate attribute of God, how 
should it ever so far prevail over inflexible justice as to 
lead to the adoption of any plan of grace for the salva- 
tion of sinners ? Why should not sheer justice, which 
on the theory in question is absolutely central and 
determining in the ethical character of God, take its 
course and punish the sinful world without mercy ? 
The theory answers, that God did punish the world 
vicariously in Christ. But why not the guilty world 
itself, which seems more consonant with general jus- 
tice ? The only answer is, that God graciously chose to 
pursue a course which looked toward man's salvation. 
And thus mercy is at last brought in and made to 
determine the policy of God. No other motive for sal- 
vation is conceivable. 

Thus the attribute to which is assigned a secondary 
place in God's nature asserts itself as primary in his 
action. No theory which remands the mercy of God to 



THE ATONEMENT 163 

the background can carry out its assumptions with logi- 
cal consistency in application to the actual provision of 
God for the salvation of sinners. The work of atone- 
ment springs out of God's nature ; and since it can 
originate only in his grace, his grace must be a fun- 
damental element of his nature. 

It is, indeed, of the utmost importance to maintain 
that God must always be just, but it is of equal impor- 
tance to determine what is the nature of his justice. 
One view is that the essence of divine justice is retri- 
bution ; it is the quid pro quo element of God's being 
which necessarily repays all sin with a full and adequate 
penalty. This view of justice is commonly associated 
with the theory that justice is the essential attribute of 
God. In this view God must punish sin ; he must pun- 
ish every sin with its full quantum of penalty. If he 
does not thus punish it in the case of the person com- 
mitting it, he must do so vicariously ; and this he does 
in Christ, who bore the accumulated penalty of the 
whole world's sin. The arm of almighty vengeance is 
lifted, and the penal stroke must descend. If it is not 
to descend on man, some substitute must step into 
man's place and receive it upon his own head. This 
Christ did. In this view, God's justice is a quality 
which necessitates punishment, and which precludes for- 
giveness until it has been appeased by punishing. In 
this view of justice, Christ was punished with the full 
penalty of all human sin. It will readily be seen how 
this view of the nature of divine justice logically in- 
volves the idea that justice is primary in God. Justice 
of this sort is, indeed, essentially incompatible with 
mercy, and it may well be doubted whether it logically 



164 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

leaves even a subordinate place for mercy in the divine 
character. 

Another view of divine justice makes it the reaction 
of God's holy nature against sin. It is an element of 
the divine love. It is the Tightness, the uprightness, of 
his nature which, by its very nature, involves his holy 
displeasure against all sin. But it does not follow that 
he must, in every case, punish sin ; or, in other words, 
it does not follow that he cannot forgive without first 
punishing sin. God's righteousness exists, and is exer- 
cised in conjunction with his benevolence. In favor of 
this view we may appeal from mere a priori, abstract 
definitions to all practical human experience of goodness 
among men. The moral sense of mankind would repu- 
diate the idea that the ideally just or righteous man was 
the man of whose moral life and action mere strict 
retribution was the maxim. Shylock will never become 
a favorite character among men. The rigid dogmas and 
definitions of theology on this subject relax when we 
bring them into the light and warmth of men's practi- 
cal judgment and feeling. Men commonly believe — 
and they ought to believe — that real goodness consists 
of a combination of justice and mercy ; and most men 
rightly refuse to believe that justice in God is some- 
thing utterly different from justice in man. I freely 
admit that it is not possible to define justice in this 
general sense so clearly and sharply as it can be defined 
in the merely penal or retributive meaning ; but the 
ease and simplicity with which some ideas may be 
defined are often due to the onesidedness with which 
they are viewed, and the arbitrariness with which they 
are theoretically separated from that with which, in all 



THE ATONEMENT 165 

life and experience, they are essentially and inseparably 
conjoined. This is true in the case under considera- 
tion. Facility of definition is one of the faultiest tests 
of truth. It assumes a simplicity and a separateness of 
qualities and relations which are quite contrary to all 
that we actually know of God from revelation, or of 
man from experience. The definition of divine jus- 
tice as mere, sheer retribution untempered by mercy 
belongs to the theologian's book ; it is foreign to the 
moral sense and the common judgments of mankind. 

In the view of God's nature for which I have ex- 
pressed a preference, atonement would be a revelation 
of God's total character in his dealing with sinful men. 
It is not the work of one part of his nature to satisfy 
another part, since God was never divided against 
himself; nor should the distinguishable aspects of his 
perfection ever be thought of as separate and as acting 
independently. In atonement God reveals, realizes, 
vindicates, and satisfies himself — his whole indivisible 
nature — in the treatment of sin. Atonement is an 
operation of God's love, which is a name for his total 
perfection. The atonement is a satisfaction to God's 
nature, but to his whole nature — to his benevolence as 
well as to his righteousness. It is God's self-satisfac- 
tion in a method of action in redemption which reveals 
and vindicates his holy love. God can be " satisfied " 
in no other sense. He can be satisfied only by express- 
ing in action his glorious and holy perfections, and by 
realizing in the universe the ends which accord with 
his own will and nature. The atonement, whatever it 
is specifically, must be God's work in his relation to 
sinful men ; not the work of some third party ac- 



166 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

complished ab extra upon God. It springs from the 
heart of God and is its consummate and most ade- 
quate expression. 

The atonement, then, bears an essential relation 
alike to the benevolence and to the righteousness of 
God. It has its motive and spring in the former, and 
it reveals and vindicates the latter. It is in regard to 
this second relation of the atonement that the principal 
differences of theory among theologians have arisen. 
Before entering more specifically upon the doctrine of 
the atonement as actually accomplished in Christ, let us 
note that the general conception for which atonement 
stands is the divine self-consistency in forgiveness. 
The necessity of atonement lies in the fact that, if God 
forgives, he must forgive in a way which shall, at the 
same time, express and vindicate his holy displeasure 
at sin. The central idea in atonement is the disclo- 
sure and vindication of God's righteousness in connec- 
tion with the provision for forgiveness. 

The atonement does not make God willing to forgive 
sin ; it shows at once how willing he is, and, at the 
same time, how unchangeably holy. If God had ever 
been unwilling to forgive sin, no atonement could ever 
have been provided. It was because God has always 
been willing to forgive sin that he provides atonement 
whereby his sovereign grace and his inviolable holiness 
are at once expressed and satisfied in forgiveness. The 
biblical doctrine of atonement is broadly distinguished 
from the notions which are found in heathen authors 
in regard to appeasing their divinities by gifts and sac- 
rifices. The Bible never speaks of propitiating God. 
The idea of creating in him a disposition to show him- 



THE ATONEMENT 167 

self favorable to mankind is utterly inconsistent with 
the biblical doctrine of God. The problem of atone- 
ment is not how God is in any way essentially changed 
in his nature or character, for in these respects he is 
changeless ; the problem is to show how God in re- 
deeming sinful men acts out of his whole nature, which 
includes righteous indignation against sin. 

The biblical doctrine of atonement is, that there is an 
obstacle to forgiveness in the divine nature, which con- 
sists, not in unwillingness to forgive, but in that essen- 
tial righteousness which so conditions the divine grace 
that, without its satisfaction, God cannot, in self-consis- 
tency, forgive. Atonement enables God consistently 
with his holiness actually to do what he was never un- 
willing to do. The action of God in relation to sin and 
forgiveness is not a matter of mere arbitrary will or 
disposition, since the will of God must be conceived as 
always acting in accord with his essential nature. In 
providing atonement, therefore, God fulfils a condition 
of the operation of that grace in which the whole work 
of salvation has its origin and ground. 

Thus far I have spoken mainly of the idea of atone- 
ment in the abstract. The concrete expression of the 
biblical doctrine is, that in the humiliation, sufferings, 
and death of Christ, God has so manifested, vindicated, 
and satisfied his changeless, essential righteousness, and 
has so met the ends of punishment in the assertion of 
his holy displeasure at sin, that he can consistently for- 
give sin without punishing it. In other words, God, in 
his mercy, adopts another mode of action in reference 
to sin than that of punishment. He substitutes for 
the punishment which is due to sin another method of 



168 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

vindicating sin's desert of punishment, thereby meeting 
the end of punishment. He did not substitute Christ 
for us in punishment, for the punishment of an inno- 
cent person is a contradiction in terms. He graciously 
substituted for punishment another method of proce- 
dure, which was not punishment, but which served the 
purpose which punishment would have accomplished, 
namely, the expression of the divine righteousness. I 
believe that this is the true sense of substitution. It is 
not the substitution of Christ's punishment for ours ; 
it is the remission of punishment altogether, and the 
substitution in its place of another method of revealing 
and vindicating the holy displeasure of God against sin. 
This is the import of Paul's most explicit and signifi- 
cant assertion on the subject (Rom. iii. 25, 26). 1 

How, now, can it be shown that Christ met the ends 
of punishment, and thus atoned for sin ? What was 
there in his sufferings and death which gave them this 
significance and effect ? It appears to me that the 
New Testament writers continually presuppose and fre- 
quently teach that such was the fact. It is equally 
clear that they do not explain the rationale of the fact. 
Here, then, is room for the greatest variety of theory 
and conjecture. I do not think that the human mind 
can fully solve the mystery, but certain suggestions 
may be made in regard to the direction which thought 
on the subject should take. 

The eternal Son of God left the glory of heaven, 
came down to earth, and humbled himself by taking 
on him our human nature. He identified himself 

1 For a critical consideration of this passage, see my Pauline Theology, pp. 
235-240. 



THE ATONEMENT 169 

with man in his sinful and suffering lot as far as a y 
sinless person could. In so doing he came into the 
liveliest sense of man's sinfulness, and into the pro- 
foundest possible participation in the misery of man- 
kind in consequence of sin. Though personally sinless, 
he endured, by his identification of himself with sinful 
men, the penal consequences of sin through the vivid 
realization of human guilt. He could not, indeed, feel 
God's displeasure at himself personally, because he re- 
mained throughout the period of his incarnation what 
he had ever been, — God's beloved Son, in whom he 
was well pleased. His sense of the ill desert of sin, 
and his realization of its guilt, were vicariously endured 
through his identification of himself with man. The 
vicariousness of the Saviour's sufferings was the vicari- 
ousness of love. 

The absolute purity of Christ would make his realiza- 
tion of the guilt of sin' the more acute, and his suffering 
under a sense of its guilt the more intense. His suf- 
fering with and for sinful man represents the wound 
which sin inflicts upon the divine love. It is the agony 
of the heart of God over sin. What else could so tes- 
tify to its heinousness ? What else could so proclaim 
and vindicate the holy displeasure which God must ever 
feel toward sin, and the righteousness of the penalties 
which belong to it in the moral order of the world ? 
The sufferings which Christ endured in his humiliation 
testify, on the one hand, to the divine love and con- 
descension, and, on the other, to the guilt of sin and its 
just condemnation, because they show what sin truly 
and essentially is, — an affront to absolute goodness. 
The treatment which Christ endured at the hands of 



170 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

sinners reveals, as nothing else could, the dark depths 
of human sinfulness, and remains to all time the su- 
preme vindication of God's wrath against it. 

The ends of punishment are met by Christ's vicarious 
sufferings, because they reveal, even more fully than 
punishment would do, the guilt of sin, and vindicate 
God's righteousness in condemning it. The atonement 
thus represents the self-consistency of God in the man- 
ifestation of that righteousness which necessarily con- 
ditions the operation of the divine grace. Instead of 
expressing his disapproval of sin by punishment, God 
graciously substitutes for punishment another course 
of action expressing that disapproval. In the work of 
Christ the whole nature of God, his goodness and his 
severity alike, is manifested and satisfied. The work 
of Christ shows us, in a series of historic transactions, 
how sin affects God ; how he has always felt and acted 
in view of it, and discloses the grounds of that feeling 
and action. 

At this point the question naturally arises, Is not 
the death of Jesus the one great saving deed ? and, if so, 
how can he be conceived as saving men in all ages and 
lands ? Is not salvation grounded in a historic trans- 
action which took place on a certain day about 1900 
years ago ? But let us ask, How were Abraham and 
Moses, David and Isaiah, saved ? Shall we say, By the 
Old Testament sacrifices ? But the New Testament 
declares that it is impossible that such sacrifices should 
take away sin (Heb. x. 4). Shall we then say, By a 
prophetic faith in Christ to come ? But this view in- 
volves the admission that a saving deed can save in ad- 
vance of its accomplishment, and would logically carry 



THE ATONEMENT 171 

us to a larger conception of the atonement than that 
which limits it to a single transaction, — the death of 
Jesus on the cross. 

What conception, then, shall we adopt ? To limit 
the atonement strictly to the death of Jesus on the 
cross would exclude from salvation all who, in the cen- 
turies that have since elapsed, have not heard and ac- 
cepted of it. If, however, we hold that any persons 
outside this limited company of people who have lived 
during a few recent centuries have been saved, we 
must assume some ground for their salvation. That 
ground must be the work of Christ, and we must adopt 
some larger view of it than that which restricts it to a 
single act done on a particular day centuries ago. 

Just here let us observe certain suggestions of Scrip- 
ture. One passage — according to both our versions — 
speaks of "the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
the world " (Rev. xiii. 8), which certainly suggests the 
idea that the atonement is not an isolated, but a per- 
petual fact ; and Peter speaks of Christ as " the Lamb 
without blemish and without spot, who was foreknown 
indeed before the foundation of the world, but was mani- 
fested at the end of the times for our sake" (i Pet. i. 
19, 20) ; and does not the Apostle John ground the re- 
deeming work of Christ in that changeless love which 
is the very essence of the divine nature ? If the atone- 
ment is an activity of love, must it not be, in principle, 
as eternal as the love out of which it springs ? If 
atonement is an expression of the divine nature, a dis- 
closure at once of the mercy and the righteousness of 
God, must it not represent the action of principles and 
laws which are eternally operative in the bosom of 



172 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

Deity ? If Christ does truly represent, as we are accus- 
tomed to believe, the saving mercy of God, and if he is, 
as the New Testament teaches, an eternal Being per- 
petually active in the world, how can we limit his aton- 
ing work to one historic transaction ? If sin pervades 
the race, and if God is always manifesting his grace to 
sinners, atonement must represent a process perpetually 
operative in the essential nature of God. 1 

I believe that this is the truest and highest concep- 
tion which our minds can form of the " holy mystery of 
Christ's cross and passion." We can best regard his 
atoning death as the " transactional revelation " of laws 
of life and being which are supreme and eternal in God. 
Wherever sin is, God is atoning for it by bearing it on 
his own compassionate heart in the fathomless mystery 
of divine sympathy. Through all the ages since sin 
darkened and cursed human life, Christ bore the cross 
of sacrifice in his heart ; and when at length he carried 
the symbol of suffering love to the brow of Calvary, 
and hung in agony upon it, he was but experiencing in 
his human life the pain and shame with which sin had 
always pierced his spirit. If by an unwarranted appli- 
cation of the maxim that " God cannot suffer," we are 
to deny that the divine love can be grieved and wounded 
by human sin, and that it takes upon itself by sympathy 
the woes and burdens of its objects, we must certainly 



1 The incarnation and death of Christ are only the outward and temporal 
exhibition of an eternal fact in the being of God, and of a suffering for sin 
endured by the pre-incarnate Son of God ever since the fall. The wrath of God 
against sin began to be endured by Christ just so soon as sin began. The 
patriarchs and prophets were saved, not so much by the retroactive effect of a 
future atonement, as by the present effect of an atonement which was even then 
in progress. — President A. H. Strong, in The Examiner, Nov. 15. 1884. 



THE ATONEMENT 173 

conclude that human love furnishes no analogy to the 
love of God, and that this love is absolutely different 
in kind from any love that the human heart has ever 
felt. 

We may well confess that we cannot penetrate the 
mystery of atonement, which opens vistas into the infi- 
nite and eternal which reach far beyond our sight. But 
it is vain for the mind to take refuge in the inconceiv- 
able. God must remain to us a mystery ; but he must 
not be a mystery which darkens and confuses us — a 
mystery which paralyzes thought and baffles all inter- 
pretation by the human heart. Let us think of God in 
accordance with what we feel to be highest and holiest 
in man ; let us, believing that man is made in God's 
image, seek to interpret God and his revelation in 
Christ in the light of what seems "likest God " in the 
human heart. Our efforts will be inadequate, but they 
are the best that we can make. If love in man and 
in God are not fundamentally the same, then God is 
not merely a mystery, but an enigma mocking human 
thought. Such a conception is an affront to our na- 
ture. The heart cries out for a God of whom it can 
know something through its own best feelings, and 
through its sense of kinship to him ; for we must 
know God in this way if we are truly to know him 
at all. 

The conception of atonement which I am presenting 
will be no novelty to those who are familiar with theol- 
ogy. Traces of this idea will be found here and there 
in theological thought, and a modern divine of great 
profundity and learning, the late Dr. Roswell D. Hitch- 
cock, has strikingly presented it in a published sermon 



174 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

entitled Eternal Atonement. He says that in the 
sufferings of Christ which culminated in his death, 
"eternal reality became temporal fact." This view is 
based upon the general principle that " all divine reali- 
ties are eternal." Dr. Hitchcock says that God feels 
rebellion and sin, and has always felt it, and that his 
" agony over sin is eternal." " This agony of God over 
sin," he continues, " is the Lamb slain from the foun- 
dation of the world. God himself atones, to himself 
atones ; and so atonement is both eternal and divine." 1 
Why may we not, let me add, best conceive of the in- 
tercession of Christ and of the Spirit as representing 
to us certain aspects of this perpetually active, atoning 
love of God ? 

No fully rounded theory of atonement is taught in 
the New Testament. Certain facts are there stated, — 
the humiliation, sufferings, and death of Christ. The 
significance of these events is also stated ; they are on 
account of sin, and in order to secure its forgiveness. 
It is also taught that they secure this result by reveal- 
ing the divine righteousness. But New Testament 
teaching carries us little, if any farther. A theory of 
these facts, and of their relation to their result, must be 
wrought out in accord with what we deem most conson- 
ant with a rational interpretation of Christian truth in 
general, and with the character of God as disclosed in 
revelation. For Christian living no theory is necessary. 
Most Christians have no theory. There is a power in 
the picture of the griefs and sorrows of the suffering 
Christ, endured on our behalf, to touch and subdue the 
heart, far surpassing that of any theory in respect to 

i Eternal Atonement, page n. New York, 1888. 



THE ATONEMENT 175 

their necessity or their relation to God's moral govern- 
ment. I have sought in the foregoing remarks to sug- 
gest a mode of viewing the subject which seems to me 
to set it in right relations to what we know of the 
nature of God, and of his relations to mankind. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 

We have seen that, according to the New Testament, 
the work of Christ in human life and history did not 
begin with his appearance in human form. It is rea- 
sonable, therefore, to believe that it did not cease with 
his departure from this world. The incarnation is an 
incident — though a most significant and critical one — 
in that perpetual self-revelation of God in Christ which 
is coextensive with human history. As the incarnation 
does not represent the beginning, so does it not mark 
the close of Christ's redeeming work. The New Tes- 
tament doctrine of the eternal Word, or Son of God, 
finds its counterpart in the teaching concerning his 
changeless and eternal priesthood, according to which 
he ever liveth to make intercession for us. 

We are, then, to inquire after the practical meaning 
of a group of words which the church has always applied 
to her ascended and glorified Lord. The words are : 
High Priest, Advocate, Mediator, Intercessor. These 
terms, if I mistake not, are but little used nowadays 
in sermons or in popular discussions of religion — a fact 
which is probably due to the mysteriousness of the 
truths for which they stand. They still linger, how- 
ever, in the language of prayer and praise, thereby 
proving that they represent essential and practical con- 

176 



THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 177 

ceptions of Christ's person and work. Unless we limit 
the significance of Christ to his human appearance, we 
must attach the greatest importance to the unsearch- 
able but profound, truths of his world-wide and perpet- 
ual spiritual activity in the salvation and sanctification 
of men. 

I am deeply impressed with the mysteriousness of 
the subject. Fully to know the nature and method 
of the Saviour's activity in salvation would be to pene- 
trate the very secret of Divinity. For such complete 
knowledge the human mind is utterly inadequate. But 
it does not follow that we can get no glimpses into the 
meaning of the mysterious truth ; that we can form no 
helpful, even if but very imperfect, conception of what 
Christ continues to do for us. If we must decline to 
believe and to use inscrutable truths, we should be re- 
quired to abjure religion altogether ; for God himself is 
the supreme mystery, and everything spiritual is myste- 
rious. But to insist upon limiting all thought concern- 
ing Christ to his human life on earth, is to run counter 
to his own self-testimony, and to the whole trend of 
New Testament teaching. The words of Christ speak 
more of eternity than of time. He declares that he 
came forth from God, and was going again to God ; and 
the apostles — notably John and Paul — find the chief 
significance of his person and work in what he ever 
is and does, of which his work in the flesh is but an 
expression in terms of human life and experience. 

In seeking to ascertain — at least, in part — the prac- 
tical significance for Christian thought and life of the 
intercession of our Saviour, I shall begin by adducing 
the principal New Testament representations of his 
mediatorial office. 



178 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

The doctrine of the intercession of Christ is strik- 
ingly presented in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The 
purpose of this epistle is to compare Christianity and 
Judaism, with a view to proving the superiority of the 
former. In accord with the author's purpose and method 
of thought, the Christian religion is described chiefly in 
terms and figures which are drawn from the Old Testa- 
ment. Christ is accordingly represented as the High 
Priest — the antitype and fulfilment of the Old Testa- 
ment priesthood. Unlike that office, which is tempo- 
rary, his priesthood is changeless and eternal. "He 
abideth a priest forever." He does not minister, as do 
the Levitical priests, in a perishable sanctuary built by 
human hands, but in the eternal temple, the immediate 
presence of God. The Jewish ritual was but a shadow 
of the heavenly realities. The intercessions of all human 
priests are but symbolic or prophetic of the one all-pre- 
vailing intercession of the Mediator, Jesus. It is in 
this connection that the author describes Christ as our 
heavenly High Priest, sitting on the right hand of God, 
and ever making intercession for those who draw near 
unto God through him (Heb. vii. 25 ; viii. 1). 

Besides this elaborate presentation of the priestly in- 
tercession of Christ in Hebrews, we have in the New 
Testament four passages — two from Paul and two from 
John — which express essentially the same conception. 
In the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul is urging the 
practical bearings of his preceding arguments. He 
dwells upon the Christian's secure sense of sonship to 
God, and upon the powerful aid of the divine Spirit 
which is vouchsafed to him. He draws the triumphant 
conclusion : " If God is for us, who is against us ? " He 



THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 179 

then argues that if God has given us his Son for our 
salvation, he will not fail to give us in him all needful 
gifts and graces for the completion of the work, and 
then again exclaims : " Who shall lay anything to the 
charge of God's elect ? " No one shall, he implies ; for 
"it is God who justifieth." Then follows another form 
of this same challenge : " Who is he that shall con- 
demn ? " No one can ; for " it is Christ that died, yea 
rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the 
right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for 
us" (Rom. viii. 31-34). It will be seen how significant 
to Paul's mind is this intercession of Christ, since he 
makes it one of the grounds of the Christian's con- 
fidence and triumph. 

In the passage just noticed, the intercession of Christ 
is associated with the continuance and completion of 
the work of salvation after it has been begun. In the 
other Pauline passage, the mediatorship is conceived 
of as procuring the provision for salvation : " For there 
is one God, one mediator also between God and men, 
himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom 
for all " (1 Tim. ii. 5, 6). This passage suggests the 
connection to which I have here called attention, be- 
tween the conception of Christ's pre-incarnate activity 
as the Light of men, and the notion of his continued 
intervention on man's behalf as the Mediator. 

The two passages from John are next to be noticed. 
M If any man sin," says the apostle, " we have an 
Advocate 1 with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous " 
(1 John ii. 1). The word Advocate, or Paraclete, is 
applied to Christ only in this passage ; commonly in 

1 Or Paraclete — irapiicXrrros. 



180 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

John it is a name for the Holy Spirit. It is a legal 
term, and denotes one who is called in to the side of 
another in defence — a helper. As applied to Christ, 
the term implies that he espouses the cause of sinful 
man, and is the medium through whom the divine for- 
giveness is sought and obtained. A similar idea is 
implied in the words of Christ, as reported in John xiv. 
1 6 : "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Paraclete, that he may be with you forever, 
even the Spirit of truth." Christ himself was an Ad- 
vocate or Helper ; the Spirit will be another, who will 
take his place so far as his bodily presence is con- 
cerned, but will only make more real and vital his 
spiritual presence with his disciples. We notice here 
that the office of advocacy or intercession is ascribed 
both to Christ and to the Spirit. We find the same 
association of ideas in Paul also, who represents the 
Spirit as "helping our infirmities," and as "making 
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be 
uttered " (Rom. viii. 27). 

Let us now try to estimate, in some measure, the 
practical significance for Christian thought and life of 
this doctrine of Christ's intercession. 

1. It answers to the recognition, by the Christian 
consciousness, of Christ as the medium and agent of 
all spiritual blessing. 

The language of Christian devotion has always ex- 
pressed the conviction that God's grace to man is 
mediated through Christ. Prayer in Christ's name, or 
for his sake, is based upon this idea. The doctrine of 
Christ's mediation is the counterpart of the doctrine 
that in him God has disclosed and assured to us his 



THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 181 

forgiving love. As he represents God to us, so he 
represents us before God. As in him God is brought 
near to us, so through him we, on our part, draw near 
to God. Since he embodies and represents the divine 
grace which procures our salvation, we must ever recog- 
nize and seek that grace through him who is the agent 
of its communication. 

This truth may be partially illustrated from human 
relations. If an earthly king wished to assure rebel- 
lious subjects of his gracious disposition to pardon and 
befriend them, he could do so most effectually by send- 
ing to them some one who stood nearest to his own 
person, as, for example, his son, who should become a 
personal representative among the people of the royal 
clemency. If this son fully understood and shared his 
father's feeling towards these subjects, and at the same 
time perfectly sympathized with them in their aliena- 
tion and peril, he would not only be the messenger of 
sovereign mercy to them, but the mediator of all their 
desires and petitions before their royal master and 
friend. In like manner, if Christ is the mediator of 
God's grace and forgiveness to us, he is at the same 
time our representative by virtue of his sympathetic 
identification of himself with us, and, therefore, the one 
through whom we present our confessions and prayers 
unto God. 

We cannot set aside the significance of Christ's in- 
tercession — his continual representation of our case 
before God, and his perpetual procurement of divine 
grace and blessing for us — unless we deny the objec- 
tive reality of his saving work on our account altogether. 
It is true that we cannot clearly picture to ourselves 



182 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

the nature of this intercession. But it is equally true 
that we cannot adequately conceive of Christ's atoning 
work — the fact of which, however, is the very heart of 
the gospel. The best conceptions which we can form, 
alike of Christ's atonement and of his intercession, 
doubtless fall far short of the divine realities. Our con- 
ceptions are not the measure of divine truth. We must 
freely acknowledge that we cannot adequately define 
these realities. The effort to do so inevitably leads 
to the development of mechanical theories which over- 
look the very nature of the truths with which they seek 
to deal. The wiser method is to forego definition, and 
to rest content with such suggestions as these mys- 
terious truths offer to our faith. In this way we shall 
not impoverish them by strained and unreal over-defini- 
tion, and shall best realize, in thought and life, their 
real religious value. 

2. The doctrine of Christ's intercession signifies the 
continued operation of the divine mercy in redemption 
— the perpetuity of atonement. 

In speaking of atonement we sought to find its law 
or principle in the divine nature — in the sympathy 
of God and in his agony over sin. The intercession of 
Christ seems to me to accord with and to re-enforce 
this conception. If the historic atoning work of Christ 
is grounded in a perpetual action and process of the 
divine nature ; if, in the light of Scripture, we can re- 
gard the earthly mission of Christ as grounded in the 
depths of his divine essence, and in his perpetual spirit- 
ual activity in human life and history — is it not reason- 
able to suppose that we should have some hint of the 
continuance of his gracious and saving work after his 



THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 183 

ascension into the glory from which he came down to 
earth ? To my mind this conception yields the deepest 
and most practical significance which we can attach to 
the mystery of the Saviour's intercession. 

For religious experience the " intercession of Christ " 
signifies the supreme interest of the Redeemer in us, 
and his perfect sympathy with us. We derive our most 
helpful views of the subject from the "intercessory 
prayer " of Jesus, recorded in the seventeenth chapter 
of John. What is the burden of that prayer ? That 
his disciples may be kept from evil, may be filled with 
heavenly joy, may continue steadfast in love, and may 
at length share his eternal glory. What is this match- 
less prayer but an expression of our Lord's deep and 
tender sympathy and yearning for the temporal and 
eternal welfare of his people ? We can form no essen- 
tially different idea of his heavenly intercession on our 
behalf. We can only think of it as a perpetual voicing 
of our needs and desires, springing from a divine knowl- 
edge of all our wants and a fathomless sympathy with 
us in all our danger, weakness, and sin. Mystery as is 
the intercession, it is a glorious mystery. It assures us 
that the divine realities of love, sympathy, and sacrifice, 
which procured our salvation, are pledged to its com- 
pletion ; that the boundless compassion of God as ex- 
pressed in the earthly life of Christ is still operative, 
because it is eternal. The divinity in Christ which 
atones for our sins, continually yearns and strives for 
our progress in holiness. 1 

This view of the subject gives a very real meaning to 

1 His work of intercession can be coextensive with the race and with the 
utmost stretch of history. He can intercede for all men in all times, for bar- 



184 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

the language of devotion to which, under the previous 
heading, I made allusion. When we offer our prayers 
" in Christ's name," we express the desire that they 
may accord with his wish and purpose for us ; we pro- 
fess that we seek for ourselves what he, in his higher 
wisdom or love, seeks on our behalf. When we pray 
"through Christ," or "for Christ's sake," we recognize 
him as the medium and the perpetual embodiment of 
the divine mercy to us. These phrases are concrete 
equivalents of the formula, "for thy mercy's sake." 
All our petitions and expectations are based upon the 
divine grace. In Christ God has supremely manifested 
his favor, and continues to manifest it. When, there- 
fore, we ask " for Christ's sake," we base our requests 
upon the divine mercy, which has been manifested to 
us chiefly in the person and work of the Redeemer. 
All who believe in Christ as the supreme manifesta- 
tion of the divine will and nature may properly use 
this language, whatever various theories they may hold 
as to the method of his saving work. The most posi- 
tive verdict of the Christian consciousness in all ages 
has been that we are, in some true sense, saved 
through Christ ; that he was and is the medium of 
the divine grace in redemption. Of this great cen- 
tral truth of our religion the intercession of Christ is 
a corollary, and the spontaneous and universal language 
of Christian prayer an expression. 

barian and Scythian, bond and free, for the unlettered and the rude, for the 
prince on his throne, for the savage in the forest, for the patriarchs and prophets 
of the old dispensation, for the apostles, martyrs, and heralds of the new. His 
intercession is as eternal and unchangeable as the priesthood on which it is 
based, and as the kingdom in which his regal petitions are the sum of all other 
prayers, and give their virtue to all other forms of interceding. — Henry B. 
Smith, System of Christian Tkeology, p. 483. 



THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 185 

In prayer we thankfully recognize the work of grace 
which God has wrought for us in Christ. We think of 
Christ as appearing on our behalf ; in him God is recon- 
ciled to us, and we are reconciled to God ; he is our 
representative ; to him we commit ourselves in ap- 
proaching the Majesty of heaven. We intrust our 
prayers to him as the perfect interpreter of our wants, 
that they may be purified of all dross of ignorance and 
worldly desire, and may be made acceptable to God 
through their accord with the mind of Christ. This 
conception of the Redeemer's intercession is beautifully 
presented by the late Dr. Henry B. Smith, as follows : — 

" There arises from all parts of the world at the morning and 
the evening, and through the labors of the day, a perpetual incense 
of adoration and of petition ; it contains the sum of the deepest 
wants of the human race in its fears and hopes, its anguish and 
thankfulness; it is laden with sighs, with tears, with penitence, 
with faith, with submission ; the broken heart, the bruised spirit, 
the stifled murmur, the ardent hope, the haunting fear, the moth- 
er's darling wish, the child's simple prayer ; all the burdens of the 
soul, all the wants and desires nowhere else uttered, meet to- 
gether in that sound of many voices, which ascends into the ears 
of the Lord God of hosts. And mingled with all these cravings 
and utterances is one other voice, one other prayer, their sym- 
phony, their melody, their accord, — deeper than all these, ten- 
derer than all these, mightier than all these, — the tones of One 
who knows us better than we know ourselves, and who loves us 
better than we love ourselves ; and who brings all these myriad 
fragile petitions into one prevalent intercession, purified by his 
own holiness, and the hallowing power of his work." 1 

3. The intercession of Christ is congruous with the 
truth of the incarnation. As it partakes of the mvs- 
teriousness, so also does it partake of the significance, 
of this cardinal doctrine of Christianity. 

1 System, p. 483. 



186 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

The practical aspect of the incarnation is that God, 
in the person of his Son, unites himself with humanity. 
He takes upon him our nature, that he may purify and 
redeem it, and lift it up to the heights of his own holi- 
ness. The incarnation presupposes the kinship of man 
with God. It suggests the nearness of God to us, and 
the capacity of man to know and love God, and to live 
in communion with him. In the person of Christ the 
union of humanity and divinity is mysteriously realized. 
He is the God-man. In him God is brought down to 
earth, and humanity is lifted up to God. 

Now, the mediatorship of Christ is based upon this 
idea of his divine-human character — the union of divin- 
ity and humanity in his incarnation. This mediatorship 
suggests the idea — which theology has commonly main- 
tained — that Christ retains, in his heavenly exaltation, 
the humanity which he assumed in his incarnation. 
This seems to me an almost necessary inference from 
the doctrines of the incarnation and intercession. Christ 
is still the divine-human Saviour. Ke is the glorified 
Son of man. He is, therefore, the true representative 
of mankind. He has, if I may so express it, both the 
human and the divine points of view. He unites God 
and man, and being "himself man," is "the mediator 
between God and men " (i Tim. ii. 5). 

There is great practical power and value in the 
thought that this unique, incomparable person is pray- 
ing for us. How great an impression is made upon 
us by the fact that we are remembered in the prayers 
of some dear friend. It speaks of a deep and tender 
interest as almost nothing else does. It assures us of 
sympathy, and of high and pure desires cherished on 



THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 187 

our behalf. It testifies to the eager desire of the peti- 
tioner that the best of blessings should be ours — the 
favor and friendship of God. How much more, even, 
do the prayers of Christ for us signify and express 
the tenderest divine sympathy with us in our weak- 
ness and sin, and the deepest and purest interest in 
our truest well-being. No desire of ours for spiritual 
blessing ascends to heaven which does not touch a re- 
sponsive chord in the heart of the Mediator. He craves 
for us all divine gifts and graces, more intensely than 
we even seek them for ourselves. Fitly, therefore, do 
we offer our prayers to heaven through him who knows 
us altogether, and who loves us even as he knows. He 
knows all the dross of our desires, and mediates to 
us the bestowment, not always of those things which 
in our ignorance and folly we ask for, but of those bet- 
ter blessings which the perfect wisdom and love of him 
who is greater than our hearts knows how to give us. 

4. The New Testament teaching concerning the in- 
tercession of Christ seems to me to emphasize the 
objective character of his work for us, and the reality 
of our relations to him. 

Needful as it is to recognize the subjective aspect 
of religion, it is even more essential not to forget its 
objective, divine basis. Religion is not merely the 
play within himself of man's own spiritual nature. 
This is one aspect of the religious life, but the ten- 
dency to lay stress on this alone issues in a one-sided 
subjectivism which can never do justice to the great 
biblical truths of revelation and redemption. If the- 
ology is to remain in any adequate sense Christian and 
biblical, it must insist that religion involves a very real 



188 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

and vital relation to God, as he is revealed in the 
redemptive work of Christ and in the sanctifying work 
of the Holy Spirit. 

Theology is certain to fall into extreme and one- 
sided views unless it combines with introspection an 
appreciative study of historic revelation. To interpret 
religious experience in pure subjectivity, as if Christ 
had never taught anything as to its origin, nature, and 
grounds, is as unwarranted as it would be to go to the 
opposite extreme, and divorce his teaching from actual 
life altogether. The current disparagement of theologi- 
cal doctrine springs largely from failure to study the 
content of revelation. The value of theology is too 
little appreciated because theology is too little studied. 
Why is this ? Partly because it is easier to evolve out 
of one's own reflections what appear at the moment to 
be the truths of religion, than to search for these truths 
as for hid treasures by long and laborious study, and 
to interpret experience in the light of the revelation of 
God in Christ. 

I call attention to this subject in this connection be- 
cause our theme suggests it, and because it is, in my 
judgment, a matter of great importance for teachers of 
religion to consider. We can have no theology which 
is worth the name unless we hold to actual historic rev- 
elation, having a measurably definable content, and to a 
real and present Redeemer, with whom religion involves 
a living and all-important relation. We cannot help 
having a theology if we do hold fast these truths. In 
my opinion the disparagement of theology to which I 
have referred, is mainly due to a subtle scepticism re- 
specting supernatural revelation, and to a consequent 



THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST 189 

withdrawal of attention from the sphere of objective 
reality into that of the religious feeling and imagination 
for the ascertainment of spiritual truth. This method 
of religious thought may result in clear and useful in- 
terpretations of certain subjective aspects of religion, 
but it is in continual danger of failing in comprehensive- 
ness ; and by its almost inevitable tendency to deny 
what it does not seem to find in its own introspections, 
it assumes a negative and destructive tone which largely 
neutralizes the force of such assertions as it does ven- 
ture to make. 

The whole teaching of the New Testament concern- 
ing the work of Christ for men in redemption and in- 
tercession assumes that his relation to us is not merely 
that of a teacher who saves us by telling us how to live 
and act. On that conception any human teacher who 
should have taught an equally lofty morality might save 
us as well as Christ, and all teachers would be saviours 
in so far as they teach men what is true and good. 
Christianity rests on a very different conception of 
Christ's work, and of his relation to mankind. He is 
an actual personal power for and in man. He really 
influences, touches, moulds, human life. He "works," 
as he himself said, for men and in them. According to 
this conception religion is a divine process as well as a 
human experience, and in this divine process the human 
experience is grounded. 

The doctrine of the intercession of Christ illustrates 
the difference between the two methods of religious 
thought which I am contrasting. Inadequate as all our 
definitions of its meaning must be, it certainly means 
this : that Christ is now engaged on behalf of our salva- 



190 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tion ; that his redemptive work for us is, in some real 
sense, going forward now. The doctrine magnifies 
Christ, not merely as a person of surpassing excellence, 
whose life is most worthy of imitation, but as an effi- 
cient Redeemer who delivers men from the dominion of 
sin, and continually secures for them the blessing of 
forgiveness and of fellowship with God. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH 

One of the most prominent words in the Bible, 
especially in the New Testament, is the word faith. 
The truths which are associated with this term are 
absolutely fundamental in Biblical religion, and must, 
therefore, have a prominent place in such a study as 
we are pursuing. I shall group the suggestions which 
I propose to make upon the subject under two heads : 
(i) The nature of faith, and (2) Its saving significance. 

Perhaps the simplest answer which can be given to 
the question : "What is faith ?" is that it is trust. But 
if this answer seems very simple, it must be remem- 
bered that it involves the most profound truths of 
religion and theology. The answer gives rise to such 
questions as these : trust in what, or in whom ? for 
what purpose, and on what grounds? Faith may be 
very simple in its actual exercise, as, for example, in 
the case of a child ; but when we reflect deeply upon 
what it really implies in the mature and thoughtful 
mind, we see that it is a very complex act. It has 
its intellectual element, and is closely bound up with 
the processes of reasoning and thought. It is an act 
of the will also, involving choices of the utmost im- 
portance, and largely draws its life and power from the 
religious feelings. But let us begin our study of the 

191 



192 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

subject by attending to its simpler and more practical 
aspects. 

This trust which best defines the nature of religious 
faith involves, on the one hand, humility on man's part, 
a sense of his weakness and sin, a confession of his 
insufficiency to be and to do what he ought ; and it 
involves, on the other hand, a confidence and repose 
of soul in God which believes that he is ready to supply 
our lack according to the riches of his grace in Christ. 
Faith is thus the receptive attitude of the soul towards 
God — the opening of the life towards his boundless 
mercy and love, as the flower opens itself to be filled 
with the sunlight. It has been common in theology 
to define faith as the condition of receiving God's for- 
giving love ; but I think there is truth in the suggestion 
of a distinguished American theologian, that faith is 
more accurately defined, not merely as the condition y 
but as the act of receiving — the act of appropriating 
in humility and thankfulness the gifts of God's grace 
in Christ. 1 

Faith is, above all things, a filial act. When a soul, 
weary of sin and of self, first begins to long for God, 
that is the turning back of the lost child, who, by his 
unfilial life, is no more worthy to be called God's son, 
towards his father's love and his own true home. The 
matchless parable of Jesus concerning the prodigal son 
tells in its simple story the profoundest meanings and 

1 Salvation is not offered to us upon any condition, but freely and for 
nothing. We are to do nothing for it ; we are only to take it. This taking and 
receiving is faith. . . . Faith cannot be called the condition of receiving, for 
it is the receiving itself. Christ holds out, and believers receive. — Jonathan 
Edwards, Observations concerning the Scripture Economy of the Trinity and 
Covenant of Redemption, New York, 1880, pp. 65, 66. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH 193 

the absolute necessity of faith. Disobedience and in- 
gratitude have sundered the true relations of the home. 
Faith is the purpose and the act of returning. The 
first dawnings of faith are seen in the lost son's sense 
of his misery, and in the feeling that it is unnecessary, 
and that he has brought it upon himself. The whole 
process of thought and decision by which he considers 
his folly and assures himself of his father's willingness 
to receive him, represents but the preparatory stages 
of that faith in the father's goodness which at length 
evinces itself in the first step taken towards home. If, 
then, any one asks what faith is, I should answer in the 
realistic imagery of the parable, that it is the resolution 
to return home and the journey thither. It is, first of 
all, the remorse, the misery, the penitence; then the 
hope, the confidence of welcome and forgiveness ; and 
later it is the sight of home with its open door, the 
eagerness, the expectancy, the sight and the joy of see- 
ing the father coming forth to meet the returning one, 
the leap into the father's arms, the rapture of the 
father's kiss. 

To ask why faith is necessary is only to ask why this 
lost son needs to go home. His rags, hunger, and 
wretchedness are reason enough. There can be no 
recovery for him from his disobedience, no return to 
his own true self, except by a complete change of 
attitude and action towards his home and his father. 
Everything turns on the question whether in humble 
trust and self-surrender he will return to receive his 
father's forgiveness and bounty. In other words, 
everything turns upon an act of faith. 

The same idea of self-renouncing trust is the burden 



194 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

of all Paul's teaching concerning faith, and, indeed, of 
the whole Bible. Men cannot be saved by deeds of 
obedience to the divine law, because they are too sin- 
ful and weak perfectly to keep its requirements. There 
remains, then, but one other way — the way of faith. 
The deliverance of the soul from its sins can never come 
from the soul's own struggles alone. Left to itself, it 
is like a bird which vainly beats the bars of its prison- 
house, longing for freedom. Its deliverance must be 
accomplished by a power above that of man. It is 
wrought when we come into new and right relations 
to God. Man must join his life to the divine life if he 
would be delivered. This is but to say that if a child 
will enjoy his father's bounty he must accept it ; if he 
will live in his true relations as a son, he must be in 
an obedient, trustful, and receptive attitude towards 
his father's love. Therefore faith is not so much an 
achievement as an acceptance. In its exercise we do 
not climb, but rest. We resign self-sufficiency. We 
cease to demand that God give us our individual por- 
tion of talent and strength to spend in selfish isolation 
from that inheritance of moral duties and spiritual in- 
terests into which we were born. We come to our bet- 
ter selves — and no man comes to God until he first 
comes to himself. We learn that we can only truly 
live in communion with God, and with one another ; 
that the life of humility and trust alone sets us into 
helpful and happy relations to the world. 

Faith is a personal relation. Its significance and 
power are chiefly due to the fact that it joins us to God 
as revealed in Christ. It is not a mere belief, opinion, 
or conviction ; it is union with Christ. The function of 



THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH 195 

faith in religion may be likened to that which the roots 
of a tree perform for the tree. These unite the tree to 
the life-giving forces of nature. Their value lies in the 
fact that they take hold upon the resources of the earth, 
and make them available for the growth of the tree. 
Similarly, faith has its value, not in itself, but in the 
divine life and power which it grasps and appropriates. 

Faith is also a growing thing. It may be very de- 
fective, but, if genuine, it is capable of growth. It 
may rest upon very inadequate grounds, and grasp but 
imperfectly its proper object, and yet be susceptible 
of constant enlargement and deepening. Such was 
Nathanael's faith, which at first rested only upon Jesus' 
insight into his thoughts. He should see, as time 
went on, said Jesus, " greater things," that is, more 
adequate grounds for trust in him. When our Lord 
wrought the miracle in Cana of Galilee, and " mani- 
fested forth his glory," it is said that "his disciples 
believed on him," that is, entered upon a new stage of 
faith as they gained new assurance of his divine power 
and glory. 

Our Lord recognized the distinction between the 
more superficial and the deeper grounds of faith in 
the interview with Thomas after the resurrection. 
This apostle demanded tangible evidence before he 
would believe. Jesus made this the occasion of lay- 
ing down a great general truth : " Because thou hast 
seen me, thou hast believed ; blessed are they that have 
not seen, and yet have believed " (John xx. 29). This 
is the beatitude of those who have not seen Christ in 
the flesh. Jesus called upon men to believe on him 
because of what he said and was. The truth which 



196 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

he brought to men, the life which he lived among 
them, and the spirit which he everywhere breathed, 
were forces which are adapted to quicken faith in those 
who had any aptitude for a spiritual religion. But he 
tells men that if they are not susceptible to these in- 
centives to faith, they are to believe " for the very 
works' sake." Jesus regarded it as a mark of the spir- 
itual degeneracy of his age that the people could be 
moved towards faith by no proof but miracles. " Ex- 
cept ye see signs and wonders," he said, "ye will in no 
wise believe ; " and for this temper he characterized 
his generation as " evil." The sort of half-faith which 
sprang up in the minds of many who were impressed 
by his miracles was often very superficial, and the 
apostle John aptly says that to such persons Jesus 
did not readily yield his confidence (John ii. 24). 

These illustrations from the New Testament show 
that there may be many grades of faith, and that faith 
may continually rise from lower to higher as it learns 
more and more to appreciate Christ, and to discern the 
meaning of his revealing and saving work. 1 

Let us next consider the saving significance of faith. 
This is best seen by observing that faith and grace are 
correlatives. Grace is the favor of God to the unde- 
serving ; faith is the thankful acceptance of that favor, 
and the entrance upon the life of fellowship with God 
and of obedience to him. The very idea of a gracious 
salvation, that is, the idea that God deals liberally with 
us, treating us better than we deserve, implies faith as 
the acceptance on man's part of the proffered mercy. 

1 On this part of our subject, see the chapter on " The Appropriation of Sal- 
vation," in my lohannine Theology. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH 197 

If salvation originates in the divine grace, it must be 
by faith on man's part. If, on the other hand, it is on 
condition of merit or " works " on man's part, then it 
is not of grace, but of debt on God's part (Rom. iv. 4). 

This is the truth on which Paul insists so strenuously 
in teaching that faith is reckoned, or accepted, as right- 
eousness. Faith is trust in Christ, the perfect Revealer 
of God, the perfect Redeemer. It is union with Christ, 
involving the disposition of obedience to God, and sym- 
pathy with his will. Faith, therefore, implies the true 
temper of humility, of confidence, and of service. It is 
not righteousness in the sense of actual perfection ; it 
is not righteousness in the sense of being an act inhe- 
rently meritorious, entitling its subject to God's favor : 
but it is union with Christ ; and union with Christ in- 
sures increasing Christlikeness, and Christlikeness is 
righteousness. God, therefore, accepts our faith for 
righteousness, because, as union with Christ, it guaran- 
tees our increasing attainment of righteousness. It in- 
cludes or involves right disposition or direction. This 
righteousness, therefore, is real, not fictitious. It is 
the possession of the spirit of Christ into which we 
have entered by faith. It is not, indeed, actually per- 
fect, but it is ideally so ; it looks forward and struggles 
on towards perfection, and is sure of final success, be- 
cause all the forces of divine love and grace are pledged 
to it. 

The objection that God can accept only a perfect 
righteousness, and that our righteousness is never per- 
fect, would lead to the conclusion that God could not 
accept us at all, and would exclude the idea of his 
grace. What God requires of us, in the first instance, 



198 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

is that we enter by faith upon a right relation to him- 
self as revealed in Christ, and begin the spiritual life. 
This spiritual life is righteousness ; it is right charac- 
ter, the increasing attainment of the true goal of our 
being. The development of true Christian righteous- 
ness is a process. None can claim that this process is 
complete in him. God does not require that it should 
be complete, but that it should have been begun. Paul 
himself disclaimed having attained perfection, but he 
said he was following on after Christ. In faith we 
enter upon this divinely appointed path. 

The perplexities with which this subject has com- 
monly been surrounded largely disappear if one simply 
holds fast the conception that Christian righteousness 
is a character to be progressively developed according 
to the pattern of Christ, and by the power of his spirit- 
ual presence. The question, then, how to secure the 
righteousness, or acceptance with God, of which the 
Bible says so much, is already answered, — by entering 
upon the kind of life Christ bids us live ; by taking 
him for our Master and Saviour. 

This acceptance of Christ in his revelation and sav- 
ing work is what the New Testament calls faith. We 
enter upon the possession of the true righteousness by 
faith, or life-union with Christ, by making him the pat- 
tern and power of our lives. We become acceptable to 
God, not by struggling and striving, but by accepting 
and trusting. We do not have to purchase or merit 
God's favor ; we have but to accept it. It is as free as 
the bounties of nature. God's gifts are generously be- 
stowed ; they pour themselves into every life that does 
not shut them out. 



THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH 199 

Define the work of salvation as we will ; hold what 
theory of the atonement we may ; conceive of the rela- 
tion of faith to righteousness according to any of the 
various theories — this remains the great and essential 
truth of the whole matter, that God accepts us when 
we are willing to accept him as he is disclosed in 
Christ. Salvation is a gift as free as air and sunlight ; 
but, like these, must be accepted and appropriated in 
order to be enjoyed. 

To me there does not seem to be anything arbitrary 
in the idea that God should pronounce man righteous 
upon condition of his faith in Christ. If real faith in 
Christ does not set a man on the road to righteousness, 
if it does not bring him into those relations and under 
those forces which tend powerfully to right his charac- 
ter and to ennoble his manhood, I do not know what 
does or can. In saying this, I am not speaking of mere 
belief, which James tells us devils might have, and re- 
main devils still ; I am speaking of the real and thor- 
ough commitment of the heart to Christ, whereby the 
motives and spirit of his life become the guiding lights 
and shaping powers of human action and character. 
Faith does conduct us to a true righteousness, by bring- 
ing us under the power of the greatest forces that 
make for righteousness in this world. 

To the New Testament writers this acceptance of 
Christ does not mean merely to make him our example 
and ideal ; though it does mean that, and that is one 
of the greatest things in life. It means also an actual 
personal relation with Christ, in which he is spiritually 
present with us and in us. Christianity is not merely 
a series of fine ideas and memories concerning Christ. 



200 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

The gospel is not merely a system of truth or a phi- 
losophy. Christianity contemplates a real spiritual life 
under the influence of real spiritual powers. It pro- 
claims a living and present Christ — a Christ never 
more living and present than now — never more directly 
operative in the church and in the world — a myste- 
rious and invisible, but most real presence in human 
life to-day. 

From our personal relations spring the most potent 
influences which touch and mould our lives. How sig- 
nificant and powerful, then, must be that deepest per- 
sonal relation possible to the soul, — the relation of 
fellowship with God as revealed in Christ. The apostle 
Paul has sketched in one of his boldest passages the 
effect of our holding Christ thus continually in our 
faith and fellowship. He pictures the believing soul as 
beholding with unclouded vision the beauty and maj- 
esty of Christ which are mirrored in the gospel ; and 
as the soul gazes in faith and love upon the divine ideal 
of life which is thus presented to it, lo, it is itself 
transformed more and more into the same image by the 
mystic processes of the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 18). What 
the apostle is so strikingly picturing is the transform- 
ing power over the human spirit of the divine, ideal 
life of Christ, when the union of faith and love has 
brought the human personality into contact and sym- 
pathy with it. 

It is not to be forgotten that Christian faith has also 
its intellectual side, and involves consent to certain 
great truths which are most vitally related to character. 
In this aspect of it also, faith has a certain practical 
saving significance. The truths which faith holds are 



THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH 201 

such as these : the existence, the benevolence, and the 
holiness of God, who has revealed his love and grace in 
the perfect human life of his Son, Jesus Christ, our 
Lord. Faith involves belief in the Fatherhood of God, 
and in the moral kinship of man to him. It involves 
belief that right and truth are supreme, and must, at 
length, be triumphant. It cherishes the conviction that 
reason rules the world, and that the events of human 
life and history are embraced within the scope of wise 
and loving purposes. While mere theoretic assent to 
such truths as these would not constitute Christian 
faith in the full biblical sense, the genuine and practi- 
cal belief in them must be a great power in any life 
which cherishes them. I affirm without hesitation that 
these are the truths which, in all ages, have had power 
to save the minds of men from those wretched philoso- 
phies of life which have so often driven the human 
heart to despair. He who sincerely holds these truths 
can never believe, with Materialism, that the universe 
is a vast machine whose wheels of time and fate grind 
relentlessly on ; nor, with Dualism, that evil is as eter- 
nal and as powerful as goodness, and can never be 
overcome ; nor, with Pessimism, that existence is a 
wearisome burden, and that life is not worth living. 
To the eye of Christian faith these philosophies are pit- 
iable and contemptible. The Master whom faith recog- 
nizes has taught the heart to hope and to trust. Hu- 
man nature responds to the assurances and promises of 
Jesus. The prophetic instincts of the soul re-enforce 
the gospel which proclaims peace and joy as the true 
portion and goal of human life. This conviction Ten- 
nyson has embodied in the noble lines : — 



202 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 

I heard a voice, " Believe no more, 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 

That tumbled in the Godless deep; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part, 
And like a man in wrath the heart 

Stood up and answered, " I have felt." 

1 In Memoriam^ Canto cxxiii. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE 

All the voices of revelation unite in ascribing the 
supremacy, among the virtues, to love. The institutes 
of Moses, and the new commandment of Jesus ; the 
abstract reasonings of Paul, and the practical exhorta- 
tions of James ; the vivid and impulsive rhetoric of 
Peter, and the subdued and tender verses of John — all 
blend into a perfect harmony, the keynote of which is 
the truth that love is of God, and that everyone that 
loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. We must, 
therefore, inquire what is the content of this principle, 
and why is it so central in religion ? 

No adequate definition of love can be given, nor is 
any necessary. Love is, at any rate, the power that 
leads us out of ourselves. It is the forth-putting, the 
outreaching impulse which unites us in common in- 
terest to others. Hence, " love is of God," because 
it is God's nature to impart blessing and to seek fellow- 
ship with his intelligent creatures. Love is, therefore, 
a divine principle, implanted in us by virtue of our 
creation in God's image. All love among men is a 
reflection of the divine nature in man — a trace of the 
presence of him who is ever seeking to reconcile men 
to himself, to one another, and to their own true des- 
tiny ; to solve the contradictions and abolish the dis- 

203 



204 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

cords of life ; and to unite men in the helpful and happy 
fellowship of the kingdom of love and peace. Let us 
now seek to exhibit in detail the principal elements of 
this conception of love. 

Love is a personal relation. In our common usage 
we have greatly extended the meaning of the word 
"love." We often apply it to mere objects of sense 
or matters of fancy. These are degradations of that 
noblest, sublimest word, which the Scriptures have 
consecrated to express the highest perfections of the 
human and the divine character. In the biblical sense, 
love exists only between persons. It is a moral union 
of kindred beings. The outer world and the lower 
orders of creation are never spoken of as the objects 
of God's love. He takes pleasure in them, and has a 
care for them, for " his tender mercies are over all his 
works ; " but he loves only man, because love is moral 
union, based upon kinship of spirit. All those attach- 
ments and fancies which are beneath a high and pure 
moral union of spirits, are excluded from the sphere of 
love in the sense of the New Testament. Love is a 
real affinity and fellowship of life. It is not a mere 
feeling. The conception of love as a mere stirring of 
emotion leads many into the dark as to what is meant 
when we are commanded to love God supremely. We 
may put the meaning of that " first and great command- 
ment " before ourselves thus : God is the absolutely 
perfect Being. Love to God is sympathy, affinity, har- 
mony, with his perfection. It is the fixed choice of 
God, and the constant striving of our hearts after 
fellowship with him. 

To reveal this divine perfection to men through a 



THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE 205 

life, human in its experiences, yet divine in its purity, 
and then to help men to choose that true and perfect 
life, and to make it the type and law of their own, is 
the chief purpose of Christianity. Hence religion is 
neither mere ethics, nor mere belief, but a personal 
relation of fellowship with God and of likeness to him 
as he is revealed in Jesus Christ. 

Love also involves an intelligent choice of its object. 
True love is never blind ; it acts in the light of reason. 
Mere sensuous desire or fancy (often called "love") 
is blind, because it does not act from rational motives. 
No real love is possible between persons without an 
intelligent choice of each other. If the emotions are 
the warmth of love, intelligence is its light. This con- 
sideration helps us to understand what love to God 
means. We are to choose God in the light of what 
we know him to be, as the object of our service and 
the goal of our hopes. God has revealed himself to us 
in Christ as perfectly as our finite understandings will 
permit us to know him. This revelation is found in 
the principles, spirit, and teaching of the Redeemer. 
We are to choose these for our own, and live, as Paul 
says, " unto Christ." To trust in the divinely revealed 
Saviour, and to adopt and exemplify the principles of 
life which are divinely revealed in him, is to love God. 

Love enlists the whole being in devotion to its ob- 
ject. It fires every noble emotion. It kindles the 
whole life into a calm, steady flame of zeal and devotion. 
Love longs to give, to serve, to bless. All the truest 
endearments of earth serve to illustrate this aspect of 
love. The love that gives nothing for its object may 
well be doubted. But the gifts of sympathy, time, 



206 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

kindly attentions, and thoughtful care — these are the 
language of love. Well might Jesus say that the story 
of that woman who fell at his feet with her box of oint- 
ment, and mingled her gift with her tears, should be 
told throughout the whole world ; for it has in it an un- 
dying significance. It was because she had thus given 
that Jesus concludes, " She loved much " (Luke vii. 47). 
Thus love to God is seen to be the response of the 
human heart in gratitude and devotion to the heart of 
him who " first loved us." 

Love furnishes the strongest motives for action and 
service. What danger will not men face, what hard- 
ship will they not endure, for love. The grand heroisms 
of the world have had their spring in the very principles 
which Jesus enthrones — the love of God and the love 
of man. Ambition has gathered armies and founded 
empires, but love has won the conquests for the king- 
dom of truth and righteousness. Human relationships 
constantly illustrate the potency of the motives which 
love supplies. Jacob serves seven years for Rachel, 
and, adds the old story, with a true touch of nature, 
" They seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he 
had to her" (Gen. xxix. 20). Love makes hardships 
light. Long weeks and months we watch at the bed- 
sides of those we love, and hardly think of toil or care, 
until the body is worn out, while the spirit is keen and 
energetic, because it is sustained by love. Love is like 
a fine ether which bathes and penetrates all our life — 
a breath of God which surrounds us and imparts sweet- 
ness to our existence. Fitly does a biblical poet say 
that this wonderful, magical power is as " strong as 
death " ( Cant. viii. 6). A principle which involves such 



THE DOCTRINE QF LOVE 207 

motives and inspirations, when directed to the highest 
ends, may well be called the sum of all goodness. 

Love is the most comprehensive virtue. The apostle 
Paul urges this consideration when, in speaking of the 
graces of the Christian life, — kindness, humility, for- 
bearance, and forgiveness, — he adds : " And above all 
these things put on love, which is the bond of perfect- 
ness " (Col. iii. 4). All other virtues have their unity in 
love. Hence the same apostle teaches that the end of 
Christian instruction is love (1 Tim. i. 5), and that love 
is "the fulfilment of the law " (Rom. xiii. 10). We can 
easily see that every form of goodness is included in the 
sphere of love, since love is the supreme choice and ser- 
vice of God, the perfect character. All truths concern- 
ing God find their unity in the supreme truth that " God 
is love " (1 John iv. 8, 16). Love is moral completeness. 
God is righteous, because he is love, since love is eter- 
nally holy. He is kind and benevolent, because he is 
love, since love is eternally benevolent. In this grand 
truth all Christian doctrines are brought into unity and 
harmony. 

Love is the only principle on which any high form of 
human society is possible. If the members of a com- 
munity do not minister to each other's good ; if they do 
not serve and help one another ; that is, if they do not 
act, in greater or less degree, on the principle of love — 
no society is possible. Selfishness, which is the opposite 
of love, is the principle of isolation, and would be the 
destruction of social life. Love is the principle of asso- 
ciation and brotherhood, and is, therefore, the only bond 
which can hold men together in pleasant and helpful 
relations. Thus the principle of love, which Christianity 



208 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

makes central, is the only principle on which a true 
civilization can be built. The law of sacrifice and ser- 
vice is the law of life for nations as well as for individ- 
uals. Even the other elements which must enter into all 
high civilizations, such as wealth, science, and the arts, 
can be but sparingly utilized for the good of the com- 
munity except under the law of love. To look not only 
on one's own things, but also on the things of others, is 
the essential condition of all social happiness and well- 
being. 

Love extends its offices to the widest range of ob- 
jects. It cannot shut up its sympathies and services to 
a few favorites. If it should, it would be no longer 
love, but only a slightly enlarged selfishness. This as- 
pect of love is presented in the teaching of Jesus by a 
striking illustration. When asked, "Who is my neigh- 
bor ? " he told his parable of the man who went down 
from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who 
wounded him and left him half dead. And who is the 
man who, in passing that way and finding him, had com- 
passion on him and ministered to him ? A Samaritan ! 
A man of the nation which the Jews hated ! These 
men who would not have touched each other in the 
streets, — men at the widest removes in respect to 
sympathy and social standing, — are neighbors still, 
and are bound to one another by the imperishable 
obligations of love. Such was the Lord's answer con- 
cerning the range of true love (Luke x. 30-37). 

Another peculiarity of love is that it is not only great 
enough to reach to the grandest heights of human duty, 
but is also great enough to descend to its minutest and 
commonest particulars. It is one of the glories of love 



THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE 209 

that it prompts the great heroisms of the world ; but it 
is almost a greater glory that it is able to nerve for 
their tasks those plodding lives whose days are all so 
commonplace, and to inspire to faithfulness in the 
things that are least. There are but few who have the 
opportunities or gifts for great attainments. Most men 
need an inspiration for the common tasks and duties 
that come to them daily in wearisome routine, more 
than for any grand achievements. Human life is mainly 
made up of commonplaces. " If," says F. W. Robert- 
son, " you compute the sum of happiness in any given 
day, you will find that it is composed of small attentions 
and kind looks." We need a principle that will touch 
and elevate these details of our every-day lives. The 
moral heroism of the martyrs would probably be worth 
less to most of us in our conditions, than the kindly 
sunny atmosphere, which love can breathe around our 
commonest tasks and joys and troubles. Who can 
forget the power of love to stoop to the commonest duty, 
as long as there stands upon the page of the gospel 
that most suggestive description of the serving love of 
him who knew that he came forth from God and was 
going again to God (John xiii. I, seq.) ? 

We cannot realize the power of love unless we think 
how much it can bear. " Love suffereth long and is 
kind." We have but to remember what parents will 
bear from a wayward, wicked son. When promises are 
all broken, and compassion itself seems quenched in de- 
spair, the first sign of repentance or reform is hailed 
with hope, and the parental heart makes haste with its 
invitation, "Come home once more." True to life, the 
matchless parable of Jesus tells its story of fatherhood 



210 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

waiting to bless the wandering, lost child — touching 
picture of what love can do and surfer. We cannot 
wonder that love is supreme in the gospel, when we 
look upon this parabolic picture of the love of God. 

The law of love is also the law of freedom from sin. 
True love bears within itself the best guaranty of good 
character, of righteous living. " Love," said Augustine, 
"and then do what thou wilt." The "apostle of love " 
insists that love and the life of sin are essentially in- 
compatible. He says : " Whosoever is begotten of 
God," that is, whosoever has entered upon the life of 
love that God imparts, " does not commit sin ; " but he 
dares go farther and add : " And he cannot sin because 
he is begotten of God." His meaning is not that the 
true Christian man is free from all acts of sin, for he 
elsewhere asserts that such is not the case, but that the 
life of habitual and wilful sin is radically inconsistent 
with the possession of love. Since love is union with 
Christ, it must contain in itself the true principle of 
righteousness. If love and sin are opposites, it follows 
that love and righteousness must essentially involve one 
another. The more completely our lives are under the 
sway of the law of love, the more complete will be our 
deliverance from the power of sin, since love involves 
harmony with the divine life. 

The logical basis of all these truths concerning love 
is that highest and most comprehensive truth of our 
religion, — that God himself is love. Love is central in 
religion because it is central in God, as in the mystic 
vision of the Apocalypse, the Lamb — the symbol of suf- 
fering love — stands in the midst of God's throne (Rev. 
vii. 17). Shall we, then, dare to say what seems to fol- 



THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE 211 

low, that to serve and sacrifice is possible for God ? 
Yes. God is love, and service and sacrifice are but 
activities of love. It is, as we have seen, the very- 
nature of love to give, to serve, to sacrifice, and bless. 
If this is not the nature of the divine love, then that 
love is unintelligible to the human mind, and is neither 
reflected nor interpreted in the love of human hearts. 

If our Lord lived a life of service, giving himself 
without stint to help and bless men, it is because it is 
really Godlike so to do. If Christ lived a life of sym- 
pathy, bearing men's griefs and carrying their sorrows, 
it is because there is a great compassion, of which all 
human tenderness is but a faint reflection, in the heart 
of the Eternal. If Christ gave his life in vicarious sac- 
rifice for men, it is because there is in the being of God 
himself the possibility of vicarious suffering, which, so 
far from marring his blessedness, is one of the elements 
of that matchless perfection whose name is love. 

We, accordingly, find that this divine law of service 
and self-giving has been wrought into the very constitu- 
tion of the universe. While this principle is central 
and distinctive in Christianity, it is by no means con- 
fined to it. While the truths which God has revealed 
in the gospel transcend all other truths, they do not 
stand off apart and separate from the principles which 
he has wrought into nature, and into the soul of man ; 
they are rather the crown and completion of them. In 
Christianity we see illustrated and operative the highest 
laws of life and being in their relation to the noblest 
ends. The world is made and administered upon the 
principle of interdependence and mutual helpfulness. 
In nature, one set of forces is brought under contribu- 



212 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

tion to another. The lower force of gravitation is sub- 
ordinated to the higher force of chemical affinity. This, 
in turn, is subordinated to the force whose various 
forms are light, heat, and electricity ; and these forms 
of force die and rise again in the organic processes of 
vegetable life. Then the products of the vegetable 
forces are brought under contribution for the support of 
animal life ; and, finally, all these are subjected to the 
reign of a higher sceptre, — the sceptre of reason and 
thought. 

Thus the beauty and grandeur of nature are made 
possible only by this interrelation of various forces. 
The flowers cannot bloom in fragrance and beauty, un- 
less the forces of earth and air and moisture give them- 
selves for their support. The sun could not shine on, 
flooding the world with light, if it were not slowly con- 
suming itself. The fields could not wave with harvests, 
if the seed that is sown in the ground did not give 
itself and die. To this very analogy between self-giving 
and self-obliteration in nature, and self-sacrifice in lov- 
ing service, our Lord referred, in illustrating the divine 
law which ruled his own life, when he said : " Except a 
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 

Jesus often declared that he was under this law of 
self-giving. He must give his life for men in labor and 
suffering, and, finally, in the death of the cross, before 
he could be glorified. This was the necessity to which 
divine love had subjected him. His dying for men took 
its solemn meaning from the fact that he had lived for 
them. He was giving his life every day of his ministry, 
in a sense far deeper than we have ever fully fathomed. 



THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE 213 

He gave the things which really make up life, — his 
sympathy, his personal influence, and the helpful offices 
of love and kindness. 

The principle which Jesus so much emphasized in 
his teaching, and so perfectly illustrated in his life, that 
he that giveth his life shall save it, is one of universal 
validity and application. It is the supreme law of the 
universe. God himself would be robbed of the charac- 
ter with which we invest him, were not this giving im- 
pulse fundamental to his nature. With all our best 
conceptions of his goodness and grace is intertwined 
the thought of him as the bountiful Giver. The crea- 
tion of the world, as well as its redemption, was an act 
of self-imparting love. God is to us the perfect charac- 
ter, because he is the infinite Giver. Here, then, is the 
ideal for all complete life. When Jesus comes to reveal 
God, he comes proclaiming that the only road to com- 
pleteness of life is through giving, service, sacrifice. 
Like his Father who has sent him, he works, loves, 
and gives. Thus he lives out the ideal life; thus 
he comes to his exaltation and glory. The way lay 
through sacrifice. There is no other path by which a 
soul can ever come to the glory with which sacrifi- 
cing love has now clothed him in the presence of the 
Father. 

The law of serving and giving is the law for all true 
and noble living. Men must give their lives for each 
other. This law is not fulfilled by the giving of specific 
things out of one's abundance, in which "a man's life 
consisteth not." If with Peter we are compelled to say, 
" Silver and gold have I none," we can at least add, 
" Such as I have, give I thee." We have still some- 



214 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

thing to give, — ourselves ; and this is the greatest and 
best gift of all. In his sacrifices and services for his 
churches, Paul could say, " I die daily." He was con- 
stantly giving himself, his sympathies, his energies, in 
self-denying labors. Thus he gave his life, and how 
truly did he save it ! 

Such is the giving of life which ends in taking it 
again glorified by relf-renouncing love. Such is the 
abasement which brings the true exaltation. This is 
the service which makes truly great, the dying that ends 
in larger life, the giving that makes rich, the sowing in 
patience and love that brings a harvest of summer 
flowers. Thus — 

"Men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things." 

This self-giving, when practised in its true spirit, 
does not awaken that sense of personal deprivation and 
loss which is so commonly thought to be associated 
with it. The spirit of all true service — of all Christ- 
like giving of ourselves to others — springs from love, 
and love finds its richest reward and keenest joy in 
such self-giving. Obedience to this law brings a sense 
of the fulness of life, and not of loss and want. He 
who serves from love soon learns to find his joy and 
life's true richness in so serving. The mother who 
watches over her children, and guards their every inter- 
est with jealous care, would not admit that her care 
and watching are a self-deprivation, something with- 
out which her life would be fuller and happier ; it is 
her privilege to do this, her joy, her right under the 
sanction of God's supreme law, — the law of service. 



THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE 215 

Tennyson has embodied this thought in the familiar 
lines : — 

Love took up the glass of time, and turned it in his glowing hands; 
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with 

might, — 
Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of 

sight. 1 

l Locksley Hall. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 

There is no theme which is more vital to the 
Christian life than the subject of prayer. It has a 
large place in the teaching and work of Jesus and his 
apostles, and the church has always rightly given it a 
special emphasis among Christian duties and privileges. 
I shall therefore treat, in this chapter, of prayer in its 
connection with some other elements of Christian doc- 
trine and life, with a view of emphasizing some phases 
of the subject which have not always received the 
attention which they deserve. 

The most essential idea in the Christian doctrine of 
prayer is that prayer springs from our filial relation 
to God. The fullest teaching of our Lord on the 
subject — the teaching which is the basis of all other 
New Testament teaching — is found in the sixth chap- 
ter of Matthew ; and here the fundamental idea of true 
prayer throughout is that God is our Father. The 
whole development of the subject, the warnings against 
the " vain repetitions " of the heathen, and the formal 
humility of the Pharisees — all rest upon this idea. The 
conception of God as Father is the corrective of these 
false and superficial views. Hence men are taught to 
pray beginning, " Our Father who art in heaven." 
Prayer, then, is the expression of the child's need and 
of the child's claim upon the Father. 

216 



THE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 217 

Another presupposition of all true prayer is that our 
Father knows all our needs, and is willing, in advance, 
to supply them. Hence our Lord's warning against 
the empty repetitions of the heathen, which rest upon 
the idea that the divinity is reluctant to grant his favors, 
and that his reluctant mind must be won over by the 
prolonged and incessant repetition of the same wish or 
cry. Over against this conception Jesus places his 
thought that "your Father knoweth what things ye 
have need of before ye ask him." To the same effect 
also is his counsel against undue anxiety concerning 
food and raiment, which stand as symbols of the ne- 
cessities of our daily life : " After all these things do 
the Gentiles seek, but your heavenly Father knoweth 
that ye have need of all these things." This whole 
line of thought reaches its culmination in the assurance 
that God is more willing to grant his blessings to those 
who ask him than earthly parents are to give good gifts 
to their children. 

God is not a reluctant, but a willing, giver. His will- 
ingness surpasses anything known to earthly love. We 
do not extort his favors from him ; they wait to descend 
upon us so soon as we rightly ask ; that is, so soon as 
we are in a true attitude of trust and receptiveness 
towards them. This thought of God in his relation 
and disposition towards us — so clearly and fully ex- 
pounded to us by our Lord — is the corrective of wide- 
spread popular misconceptions concerning prayer which 
linger still among us, and have often created a kind of 
phraseology in which to express themselves. Prayer 
does not make God willing ; he is willing already and 
always. Prayer is no besieging of the gates of heaven, 



218 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

as if a fortification must be, broken down before we 
could gain access to the presence of our Father. The 
sincerity and effectiveness of prayer are in no way 
proportioned to its loudness, as if our God were deaf 
to the wishes of his children. All such conceptions 
are relics of the worship of those who thought that 
they should be heard for their " much speaking." 

Again, prayer, as the expression of the filial relation 
in its different phases of thanksgiving, acknowledg- 
ment, adoration, and petition, has faith, obedience, and 
love for its basis and spring. Prayer, in its essence, is 
not, of course, in the words we use, but in the wish, 
the thought, the desire, the love, of which our words 
are the expression. Only in such a view do we gain 
the full New Testament thought of prayer. Jesus 
spoke a parable to the end that men ought always to 
pray, and Paul counsels the Thessalonians to pray with- 
out ceasing. These expressions certainly do not mean 
that we are always to be in the attitude or act of prayer. 
They rest upon the idea that prayer, in its essence and 
spirit, is the disposition of constant desire and thank- 
fulness towards God, the feeling of receptiveness and 
trust — in a word, faith in his goodness and provi- 
dence ; the confidence that for those who love him all 
things work together for good. An old familiar hymn 
rightly interprets to us this thought : — 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed; 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 

Prayer is the burden of a sigh, 

The falling of a tear, 
The upward glancing of an eye, 

When none but God is near." 



THE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 219 

It follows, from what has been said, that prayer is 
more than petition. It is not limited to the time when 
we are in the attitude of devotion, or are repeating, or 
even thinking, any set form of words. Prayer has its 
origin and root in the soul's inmost life ; in the yearn- 
ings and desires of the life Godward, the deepest of 
which never come to audible expression ; in the hopes 
and longings which form the undercurrents of our life 
of communion with God, and which lie too deep for 
human words. One might almost say that prayer, in 
its deepest meaning, is a name for the whole spirit and 
sweep of the religious life in its desires, yearnings, and 
hopes, on its Godward side ; but if this seem to be an 
unwarranted extension of the meaning of the word 
prayer, we may, at least, say that prayer springs from 
this inner life of the spirit, and from it derives its sin- 
cerity, its intensity, and its power. 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
Whose loves in higher love endure. 1 

From the standpoint of this conception we are able 
to see what is the real power of prayer. It is the 
power of a child's wish. Along with the crude physi- 
cal and mechanical conceptions which have so often 
dominated in theology and religion, we have popular 
conceptions of prayer which do not seem to grasp its 
ethical significance and spiritual value. Much of the 
language concerning prayer as a " power " seems to 
rest upon the idea that its operation is something like 
that of a physical force. In nature physical forces 
produce certain definite and invariable results. Similar 

1 Tennyson, In Memoriam, canto xxxii. 



220 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

uniformity of sequences has sometimes been claimed 
for prayer ; and some have been willing to lower the 
whole subject to the physical sphere, and put the effi- 
cacy of prayer to the test of experiment by means of a 
"prayer gauge." Such an idea derives all its force 
from prevalent misconceptions concerning the power 
of prayer. 

Our idea of prayer should be elevated above the 
physical sphere, and ennobled by our associating with 
it the thought of the moral and spiritual relations with 
which prayer is primarily concerned. The true power 
of our prayers with God lies in the faith which they 
utter. It was just in this connection of ideas that 
Jesus employed his strongest words concerning the 
power of prayer, throwing his thought into a parabolic 
form : " If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall say 
unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast 
into the sea; it shall be done" (Matt. xxi. 21). Or, if 
Luke has preserved the more exact setting of this say- 
ing (Luke xvii. 6), it was in response to the prayer of 
the apostles, " Increase our faith," that Jesus gave them 
this assurance of how great things are possible to faith. 

The point of chief importance, in this connection, is 
that these assurances are set in relation to faith, and 
are to be interpreted in accordance with the doctrine of 
faith and its logical implications. They are statements 
of what is possible to faith, that is, to childlike trust in 
God's will and wisdom — a conception widely different 
from the view often taken, that they are statements to 
the effect that our desires may give the law to the 
divine order, and produce results with all the definite- 
ness and uniformity of sequence known to the physical 



THE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 221 

laboratory. No ! These promises have attached to 
them the implied conditions which belong to the very 
nature of Christian faith. The great possibilities of 
prayer are predicated, not upon our demand to have our 
wills done, but upon faith, that is, upon subjection to 
God's will. 

It follows from the views thus far presented that 
Christian prayer involves subjection to God's will. It 
is not the prevailing of the human will over the divine. 
It is not the triumph of human knowledge over God's 
wisdom. It carries into all its requests the spirit of 
submission and trust. This is the lesson of Jesus' life. 
But few of his prayers have been preserved to us. They 
were uttered — or rather breathed out in silence — when 
he was alone in the stillness of the night, in the solitude 
of the mountain. But one of the most significant of 
his petitions has come down to us. It was uttered in 
the supreme moment of his life, when the heavy burden 
of the world's sin pressed hardest upon him, when the 
hatred of the world was culminating against him, when 
the cross stood just before him. It was this : " Father, 
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; neverthe- 
less, not as I will, but as thou wilt." If it be asked, 
what is the spirit of the deepest, truest prayer, I reply 
that this is the answer. To this test of Jesus' life of 
prayer, we must bring all our ideas on the subject. 
He is the living commentary on Christian doctrine, the 
touchstone and corrective of all our formulas and defi- 
nitions of the themes of the Christian life. We have 
never done the best that we can do until we bring our 
Christian thinking clearly into the light of his life and 
spirit. 



222 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

Many passages of Scripture illustrate this conception 
of our subject : " If we ask anything according to his 
will, he heareth us" (i John v. 14); and especially: 
" If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." 
(John xiv. 14). We have only to remember what the 
" name " signified in the Hebrew mode of thought to 
see the profound meaning of the phrase, "in my name." 
The " name " was the symbol of the inmost nature or 
essence of the thing or person which it represented. 
Thus God's name is a " strong tower" (Prov. xviii. 10), 
that is, God himself, in his essential being and perfec- 
tions, is this. When, therefore, we ask in Christ's 
name, we ask " in him," in his spirit, which is inter- 
preted to us in the supreme prayer of his life, to which 
reference has been made. 

We thus see the true significance of those phrases 
which are so commonly used in prayer, " We ask in 
Christ's name," and the like. By such expressions we 
should mean that we hold all our petitions subject to the 
spirit of his life of supreme trust and obedience. When 
we thus pray, we ask that our prayers may be as his ; 
that they may be purged of all mere self-seeking, and 
may express the attitude of hearts which are in har- 
mony with God's will, and an unshaken confidence in 
his providence and grace. 

The Scriptures repeatedly inculcate earnestness and 
fervency in prayer, and all right Christian thinking 
accords with this idea. Strength and earnestness of 
desire for all divine blessings spring directly from 
the consciousness of our weakness and need, and from 
the realization of our dependence. But some of the 
misconceptions to which I have alluded, together with 



THE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 223 

misplaced emphasis in the interpretation of some bib- 
lical passages, have often given a wholly erroneous 
character to the idea of earnestness in prayer. The 
idea of God's reluctance to give his blessings, and 
especially the idea of prayer as a kind of bom- 
bardment of heaven, have worked powerfully, though 
probably unconsciously, towards this end. The " wrest- 
ling " conception especially has attached itself to the 
story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, — an inappro- 
priate source from which to derive a doctrine of 
Christian prayer, not only on account of the ob- 
scurity of the narrative's meaning, and the utter un- 
tenableness of the literal interpretation upon which the 
idea of " wrestling " prayer proceeds, but wholly apart 
from these considerations, because Jacob got nothing 
for his wrestling until he submitted to the will of 
God. 

Two other passages are often appealed to as proof 
that prayer should be " importunate." They are the 
parable of the friend at midnight (Luke xi. 5-8) and 
that of the unjust judge (Luke xviii. 1-8). Let us 
consider their bearing on our subject. In the first 
parable the picture is this : A man is asleep in his 
house. A friend comes at midnight, clamoring for 
bread, because a guest in his journey has come to 
him, and he has nothing to set before him. The 
householder wishes not to be troubled ; he will not 
rise. But the knocking and clamor continue. He is 
at length compelled for the sake of quiet, and in order 
to be rid of the persistent applicant, to rise and give 
him. It is to be observed that his act is not prompted 
by love for this suppliant. " He will not rise because 



224 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

he is his friend." He does not care to relieve his need. 
He gives him only to be rid of his impudent solicitation. 
" Because of his importunity he will arise and give 
him." The word " importunity " occurs only here in 
the New Testament, and means simply shamelessness, 
impudence. 1 Is this picture of the drowsy householder 
a picture of God, and the shameless clamor or " impor- 
tunity " a picture of Christian prayer ? Already Au- 
gustine gave the correct interpretation. It is an 
argument to show that, if in such circumstances the 
midnight comer secures his request, though not from 
friendship, how much more will God, the willing Giver, 
our Father, give his blessings to us. The parable 
teaches, by the contrast of the two situations, the cer- 
tainty that prayer will be answered. 

The same principles of interpretation are to be ap- 
plied to the parable of the unjust judge. The parable 
is designed to teach earnestness and constancy in 
prayer by an argument e contrario. If an unjust judge, 
all whose qualities are the very opposite of the charac- 
ter of God, at length grants the persistent applicant her 
request, not from any interest in her case, — for he 
neither fears God nor regards man, — but only for 
fear of personal violence ; 2 if, I say, under circum- 
stances like these, the petitioner extorts justice from 
the magistrate, how much more will the sincere, earnest 
desires of God's children meet their fulfilment. "Im- 
portunity," in the sense in which the New Testa- 



1 The Greek word is avaihia. 

2 The words which are rendered in the A. V., " Lest by her continual coming 
she weary me," and by the R. V., " Lest she wear me out" etc., more probably 
mean, " Lest she come at last and beat me" The verb is bno>Tri6$uv. 



THE DOCTRINE OF PR A YER 225 

ment uses that word, is not a quality of Christian 
prayer. 

No conception of prayer which is inconsistent with 
the truth that God's will and wisdom ever remain su- 
preme can be correct. God holds before him the in- 
terests of the whole system of things and of all his 
creatures, and it would doubtless be unwise and impos- 
sible for him to grant us many things which we might 
desire. When men pray, for example, that God would 
suspend the operation of the physical order for their 
individual or collective benefit, they should always re- 
member that it may well be impossible for the adjust- 
ments which they desire to be made without serious 
harm and far more widespread misfortune than that 
which they desire God to avert from themselves. 

In the foregoing observations I have sought to trace, 
and briefly to apply, some of the principles which are in- 
volved in the doctrine of prayer. I have not considered 
the question whether the results of prayer may be ob- 
jective, or are subjective only, because I believe that a 
true conception of prayer well-nigh obviates the question 
altogether. Prayer conditions all our relations to God, 
and those relations are real. The notion that the re- 
sults of prayer are subjective only seems to rest upon 
the false assumption that man can live a self-centred 
life independent of God, and that the deepest facts 
of his religious nature and life are simply the play 
within himself of his own thought and feeling, which 
terminate only upon himself — instead of the opera- 
tion of love and obedience which have God as their 
object, and which ally us in all our life vitally to 
him. 



226 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. . . . 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round world is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 1 

There is an aspect of the Christian doctrine of prayer 
which seems to me to be sadly overlooked ; I mean the 
necessity of our fulfilling those conditions of obedience, 
trust, and service on which alone God can give us the 
richest of his spiritual mercies. Is there not something 
amounting almost to mockery in the way in which we 
often ask for the highest spiritual blessings, and then 
give no thought to fulfilling in our lives the conditions 
on which alone they can come to us ? Perhaps this 
failure to grasp the deeper import of prayer has its 
roots in the idea that prayer is mere petition. If, how- 
ever, we perceive that prayer springs from and ex- 
presses the Christian life in all its depths of conviction 
and devotion, we must see that there are conditions of 
receptiveness on our part which must be fulfilled, if our 
prayers are to avail before God. Do we not often pray 
for blessings which we are all unfitted to receive ? 
Would we not do well to pray that God would make 
us able and fit to receive his gifts ; to open our eyes 
that we might see them, and our own hearts that we 
might be able to take them ? They wait to descend 
upon us. They will wait no longer than the time when 
they can wisely be given. 

We should carry our conception of prayer up into 

* Tennyson, Passing of Arthur. 



THE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 227 

the clear light of Jesus' life and spirit that we may truly 
learn what prayer, in its deepest meaning and greatest 
power, is ; and then carry it down into the deepest 
depths of our own hearts and lives, that we may learn 
whether we do really pray or not. Then would our con- 
ception of prayer be broader, deeper, higher — as broad 
as our life, as deep as our profoundest yearnings and 
hopes, and as high as the spirit of trust which should 
bear our adorations and petitions to heaven. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE FUTURE LIFE 

What is the substance of Christian hope respecting 
the future life ? What are we warranted in regarding 
as the common belief of the Christian world concern- 
ing it ? It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to an- 
swer these questions satisfactorily. Interpretations of 
Scripture differ so widely, and are so combined with 
various presuppositions and speculations, that it is diffi- 
cult to derive from the confusion of ideas and of theories 
respecting the future a definite doctrine which may be 
said to be common to the Christian world. 

We can say, in general, that the Christian view of the 
future is one of confidence and hope. Amid the dis- 
cordant speculations as to the nature and conditions of 
the life beyond, this constant factor emerges. Christian- 
ity is the religion of hope. The Christian looks toward 
the future life with the conviction that he has nothing 
to fear. He feels secure of a blessed immortality. 
This conviction is grounded deep in the very nature of 
his religion. It is a corrollary of his belief in God. To 
the mind of the Christian the assurance of Jesus that 
" God is not the God of the dead, but of the living " 
(Mark xii. 27), appeals with invincible force. What- 
ever may be his conception of the nature of eternal life, 
or of the conditions upon which it is bestowed, he rests 

228 



THE FUTURE LIFE 229 

secure in the belief that there awaits him a conscious, 
happy life beyond. 

The Christian's estimate of Christ intensifies this 
conviction. Whatever be one's conception of his per- 
son, if he, in any sense, accepts him as an authority 
in matters of religious faith, he must adopt a hopeful 
view of the future. No one can believe in Christ at 
all without sharing, to some extent, his calm, unshaken 
certitude respecting the reality of the life beyond, and 
the beatitude of those who have lived a holy life here. 
The Christian man may accept and give full weight to 
all the arguments which speculation has developed in 
favor of the doctrine of immortality ; but although all 
these are estimated at their highest value, it is chiefly 
the calm look of Jesus into that world of mystery and 
his reassuring word which carry firm conviction to his 
heart and in which he securely rests. 

We may dwell upon the nature of the soul, reflecting 
that it is a spiritual entity, persisting through all the 
changes of the physical organism, and may, with good 
reason, infer its immortality. When we contemplate 
the marvellous faculties with which man is endowed, 
the noble ideals of which he is capable, and the splendid 
development which is possible to him, it may well seem 
to us incredible that our brief earthly life is merely 
"rounded with a sleep." The conviction of immortality 
which arises in the mind in connection with such re- 
flections is, at times, very strong and persistent. Never- 
theless, experience proves that this conviction, when 
based on such grounds alone, is not constant and im- 
movable. There are times in human life when the 
stars of hope are well-nigh quenched ; when all faith 



230 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

which rests on man's own arguments and inferences 
must falter, if it does not wholly fail. Socrates, who 
knew all these arguments well, and who employed them 
with such skill, still balances over against each other, in 
his last hours, the view that death is an eternal sleep, 
and the idea that it ushers us into a conscious and 
blessed existence. With all his power to convince 
others by dwelling on the soul's distinctness and sim- 
plicity, he is not able perfectly to assure himself that 
at death he shall pass into the society of good men and 
of wise and just gods. 

Christianity does not lightly esteem such considera- 
tions as I have just referred to. Christian faith grasps 
and appropriates them, and finds its confidence re-en- 
forced by them. The faith which is primarily grounded 
in what God is and has revealed, is seen to be suggested 
by man's own nature. The two sources of assurance 
meet and agree ; but the former always remains primary, 
the latter secondary. Our conscious life had a begin- 
ning ; why may it not have an end ? We are implicated 
in a changing and perishing order ; decay and death are 
written on all that we see around us. May we not 
also perish ? The soul is correlated with the body. 
We have no experience of its action or existence apart 
from the body. How do we know but it is a product 
of organization, and thus shares the fate of the perish- 
able physical organism ? These are questions which, in 
a purely speculative view of the subject, must present 
themselves with no little force. It is true that the 
best instincts and feelings of the soul seem prophetic 
of a nobler destiny. But I do not believe that they 
are sufficient to produce a confident and lasting con- 



THE FUTURE LIFE 231 

viction of immortality, unless we, in some way, con- 
nect our life with God, and believe that it is included 
in some great divine purpose. If we are to keep faith 
and hope respecting the future life, we must be very 
sure of God. We are living our life girt round by 
impenetrable mystery. This mystery our reason can 
never pierce ; and we can only remain calm and hopeful 
in the presence of it, by looking into the heavens above 
us and seeing that our life is illumined with hope and 
promise from on high, and interpreted by him who came 
down from heaven and brought life and immortality to 
light. 

When, however, we raise the question as to the 
place, mode, and conditions of our future existence, 
revelation returns no clear answer. We are therefore 
led to ask after the reason for this reserve of revela- 
tion. May we not say in reply, that it appears to have 
been the purpose of God not to solve all mysteries for 
us, nor to satisfy our curiosity, but to reveal so much 
respecting the future life as was needful as a ground of 
hope, and as an incentive to righteousness, and no 
more ? It is natural enough for us to wish to know 
more on this subject than has been revealed, but it 
would be difficult to show that we need to know more 
for purposes of conduct and of character. 

In addition to the constant assertion — or, rather, 
assumption — of the general truth of a future life, the 
New Testament has much to say concerning two re- 
lated subjects, the practical import of which we must 
try to estimate. They are Resurrection and Judgment. 

The most explicit teaching in the New Testament 
respecting the resurrection is found in the discourses 



232 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

of Jesus as reported in the Gospel of John, and in the 
fifteenth chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthi- 
ans. Jesus declares that he is " the resurrection and the 
life ; " that is, that in him lie the power and guaranty 
of resurrection, and adds : " He that believeth on me, 
though he die, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth 
and believeth on me shall never die" (John xi. 25, 26). 
He also declares that "the hour cometh, in which all 
that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall 
come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resur- 
rection of life ; and they that have done ill, unto the 
resurrection of judgment " (John v. 28, 29). In pas- 
sages like these it seems to be assumed that resurrec- 
tion is included in that life which the Son bestows 
upon those who accept him. Jesus could not promise 
life in the fullest sense without guaranteeing resurrec- 
tion, which is essential to its full realization in the 
w r orld beyond this. These passages, however, give us 
no description of the nature or process of resurrection. 
The difficulty which Paul experienced in securing 
in the Corinthians an acceptance of the idea of resur- 
rection was the occasion of his discussion of the sub- 
ject (1 Cor. xv. 35 seq.). The Greeks were accustomed 
to think of the soul as an independent entity, and 
as, therefore, complete and autonymous in itself, and 
capable of existing and acting apart from a body. To 
them the notion of resurrection would, therefore, seem 
superfluous, if not inconceivable. " How are the dead 
raised ? and with what sort of a body do they come ? " 
were questions which they naturally asked, and which 
they doubtless thought unanswerable. The apostle 
replied that some such process as the doctrine of res- 



THE FUTURE LIFE 233 

urrection contemplates is constantly going on in na- 
ture. Seeds are constantly dying, and rising again in 
the trees and plants which are their product. Indeed, 
this product, this goal of their existence, can only be 
realized by death. The apostle adduces the same 
analogy which underlies the saying of Jesus : " Except 
a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth 
by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much fruit " 
(John xii. 24). The idea, then, of a re-embodiment of 
life in another and higher form of existence is not 
preposterous, since it is constantly illustrated in the 
processes of nature. 

The apostle next calls the attention of the objectors 
to the great variety of forms or bodies in which various 
creatures exist. God has provided embodiments for 
the different types of life, which are adapted to their 
needs and environment. The body of the bird is fitted 
for the air ; that of the fish for the sea. " All flesh is 
not the same flesh." This consideration suggests the 
counter-question : Why should we not suppose that, as 
God provides us with bodies fitted to our earthly life, 
so he will provide us with bodies fitted to our higher 
life in the world beyond ? 

Paul then directs the attention of his readers to the 
differing degrees of brightness and beauty in the 
heavenly bodies. They do not all have the same glory. 
One star outshines another. Why, then, may we not 
suppose that, as God varies the brightness of the 
heavenly bodies according to their place or function 
in the universe, so he may in the heavenly world be- 
stow upon us bodies as far surpassing those which we 
now possess, as the sun surpasses some lesser star in 



234 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

brilliancy ? That this will be so the apostle confidently 
asserts. The present body, he says, is weak, perishable, 
and corruptible ; the future body will be glorious and 
incorruptible. The present body is that which impli- 
cates us in nature. It bears the marks of Adam, our 
natural head. It shares the qualities and the fate of 
this changing, perishing world. The future body will 
bear the marks of the life-giving Christ, our spiritual 
head. It will be adapted and correlated to that eternal 
spiritual order into which, at death, we shall enter. 
" As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall 
also bear the image of the heavenly" (i Cor. xv. 49). 

Such are the general considerations, drawn from nat- 
ural analogies and from the significance of Christ's life- 
giving work, which Paul adduces to show the possibility 
of resurrection and the reasonableness of believing in 
it. One further point — which the figure of the seed 
had already suggested — Paul touches upon. The fu- 
ture body, the " spiritual body," is not to be the very 
same as that which dies and is buried. In using the 
figure of the seed, he had said : " That which thou 
sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but 
bare grain, . . . but God giveth it a body even as it 
pleased him." The figure would seem to suggest the 
idea, that, as the grain which is produced from the seed 
is different from and more than the seed that is sown, 
so the future body is not simply the present body re- 
suscitated. On the other hand, the figure would sug- 
gest the complementary idea, that, as the full-grown 
grain is, in some mysterious way, developed out of the 
seed by an organic process so that it reproduces the 
seed's essential life-principle, so will the spiritual body 



THE FUTURE LIFE 235 

conserve and perpetuate our corporeal life, so that, as 
the apostle elsewhere says, " being clothed, we shall not 
be found naked," that is, mere disembodied spirits (2 
Cor. v. 3). The essential point which the apostle here 
urges is, that our bodily life shall be conserved and 
perpetuated, though purified from all corruption and 
mortality. Whether or not the apostle holds that an 
embodiment is essential to the preservation of our per- 
sonal identity, it is impossible to say. At any rate, he 
teaches that there will be such an embodiment. This 
"building from God" which we shall inhabit, this body 
which God will bestow, is called "spiritual," because it 
will be pure and imperishable, and fitted to our existence 
in the eternal, spiritual world. It will be " spiritual " 
in contrast to the present body, which is "natural" or 
"psychical," in the sense that it is part and parcel of 
this perishable world. By as much as heaven shall 
differ from earth, by so much shall the "spiritual 
body" exceed the "natural body" which we now 
inhabit. 

The very word " resurrection " inevitably gives rise 
to the question : Resurrection from what ? I suppose 
that the common answer would be : Resurrection of the 
body from the grave in which it was buried. But I am 
quite confident, that, if Paul cherished this idea, it does 
not represent the primary meaning of his references to 
resurrection. He never speaks of the resurrection of 
the body, but always of the resurrection of persons. 
His phrases are : " resurrection of the dead " (persons), 
and "resurrection from (among) the dead." 1 What, 
then, is his conception ? A person, as for example, 

1 'Avdorao-jj vficpwv, « vacputv. 



236 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

Christ, rises from among («) the dead ; or dead persons 
(vtKpoi) arise. It is plain to me that Paul conceives the 
subject in connection with the Jewish idea of the under- 
world, Sheol, the realm of departed spirits. This he 
primarily means when he asserts the resurrection of 
Christ. His soul was not left in Hades or Sheol. 1 He 
came forth from the world of the dead, and returned to 
this world. It is true that he resumed his former body ; 
but his resurrection did not consist primarily, for Paul's 
mind, in the revivification of his body, but in his return 
to this world from Hades, or the realm of the dead. 
The fact of prime significance is that death had no 
power over him. Its portals could not confine him. 
Of this main truth the resumption of the very body 
that was buried was an incident, most significant and 
necessary as evidencing to his disciples and to the 
world his triumph over earth, but not, in itself, the 
primary fact in which his resurrection "from among 
the dead," his triumphant release from Hades, consisted. 
In like manner, in respect to resurrection in general, 
the apostle's language lays chief stress upon the release 
of the person from the power and realm of death. One 
aspect of this release is the clothing of the spirit with 
an appropriate embodiment ; but whether that embodi- 
ment be strictly identical with the present body, or be 
in some way only germinally connected with it and de- 
veloped from it, is a question which is not essential to 
Paul's doctrine of resurrection. His main emphasis 
lies on the idea of the deliverance of the person from 
the dominion of death in the realm of the dead, and on 

1 Cf. the application of this expression to the resurrection of Christ by Peter 
in Acts ii. 27. 



THE FUTURE LIFE 237 

the assurance that the personality shall not be dismem- 
bered, but conserved in all its parts by the continuance 
and perfecting of its corporeal, as well as its spiritual, 
factor. 

Such are some of the points concerning the resurrec- 
tion, on which the strongest emphasis is laid in the 
New Testament. Yet many interesting questions re- 
main unanswered. The exact relation between the 
future and the present body is nowhere defined. The 
resurrection is commonly represented as an event which 
is to take place at the end of the present world-period. 
In what state, then, are we to conceive those to be who 
have passed, and shall pass, into the future life before 
the resurrection ? Do they exist in some intermediate 
state as disembodied spirits ? Have they already at- 
tained their final state ? If so, what occasion can there 
be for a future resurrection and judgment ? These and 
many similar questions the New Testament does not 
appear to me to answer. Revelation has not lifted the 
curtain which hangs before the mysterious future. It 
has given certain great practical assurances which have 
an inestimable value for every heart that accepts them ; 
since they prove to be a source of comfort, hope, and 
joy amid the perplexing problems of life, and in the 
face of the dread mystery, death. 

The doctrine of judgment pervades the Bible from 
beginning to end. It is also echoed in the conscience, 
and attested in the experience, the literature, and the 
legislation of mankind. The notion of judgment is in- 
separable from the Christian conception of God. Since 
God is essentially holy, he must approve goodness and 
disapprove sin. Judgment is, then, based in the very 



238 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

being of God. Were there no sin, judgment would be 
but the approving and favoring action of God toward 
those who live in harmony with himself. Against sin, 
however, judgment is the reaction of God's holy nature, 
disapproving and repudiating that which is opposed to 
it. It is the same holiness which condemns or approves 
according to the relation and attitude of men towards 
God's character and law. God is unchangeable in his 
essence, and his wrath against sin is but the reverse 
side of the approval which his holy love accords to 
righteousness. 

Judgment is represented in the New Testament, both 
as a continuous process and as a future event. We 
may unite these two conceptions by conceiving of the 
future judgment as the culmination of the process, and 
the declaration of its results. The judgment of the 
world is constantly going on. The judgment is, that 
light is come into the world. Light cannot help but 
judge, because it reveals what is. The truth separates 
men according to the attitude which they take toward 
it ; in other words, men judge themselves by their 
choices, conduct, and character. The world is continu- 
ally enacting its own judgment. " The history of the 
world," says Schiller, "is the judgment of the world." 
There is also a true sense in which God or Christ 
judges men. Judgment is incident to a moral system. 
The conditional cause of judgment is the attitude or 
character of men, but the ultimate ground is the Author 
of the system whose nature and law the system ex- 
presses. Judgment, both present and final, is insepa- 
rable from the nature of God and from the existence of 
a moral system. Judgment is grounded in God's eter- 
nal righteousness. 



THE FUTURE LIFE 239 

It would be, however, radically inconsistent with 
Christian teaching to represent the divine judgment as 
a mere rendering to every man, with absolute equiva- 
lence, of the reward to which his deeds entitle him. 
This conception would be fundamentally opposed to the 
Christian gospel of grace. It would be a denial of the 
principle that God can consistently treat men better 
than they deserve. God never ceases to be gracious. 
" His mercy endureth forever." Even his judgment is 
a gracious judgment. If with juridical precision he 
marked all iniquities, none could stand. The whole 
biblical doctrine of forgiveness, of grace, and of atone- 
ment, rests upon the idea that it is the wish and purpose 
of God not to proceed in the treatment of humanity upon 
the mere quid pro quo principle, but upon the principle 
of generosity, graciously forgiving sin, and liberally 
rewarding the undeserving upon certain prescribed and 
essential conditions. The doctrine of judgment is 
sometimes presented in a purely naturalistic manner, as 
if there were only inevitable penalty for every sin, and 
no forgiveness or recovery. This method of thought 
belongs to a necessitarian philosophy which includes 
even the Creator in its mechanical scheme of the uni- 
verse, which substitutes fate for the living God, and 
turns into a pitiless retributive machine this moral 
world over which the Father of spirits presides. This 
method of thought is germane to Stoicism and to the 
later Rabbinism, but it is the denial of Christ. 

We find that in the New Testament the judgment 
is constantly associated with the person, the work, and 
the coming of Christ. God commits all judgment to 
the Son (John v. 22). He is fitted to judge humanity 



240 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

because he is the Son of man (John v. 27). His work 
is, primarily, salvation ; but judgment is inseparable from 
it, since his truth must judge men according to their ac- 
ceptance or rejection of it. The doctrine of judgment 
must, therefore, be construed in accordance with the 
doctrines of Christ's person and work. All men are 
judged with a gracious judgment who do not absolutely 
repudiate the mercy of God. This principle is but a 
corollary of the truth that God is gracious — a truth 
which is absolutely fundamental in the gospel. If any 
man suffers the full and exact consequences of his sins, 
it must be because he spurns the divine favor and for- 
giveness, and puts himself upon the plane of law, refus- 
ing thereby to accept the divine mercy. If, as the New 
Testament teaches, it is the will of God that all men 
should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth 
(1 Tim. ii. 4), there can no man be finally lost to his 
true destiny whom it is morally possible for God to save. 
If we correlate the doctrine of judgment with the 
biblical conception of God, and with the fundamental 
principles of the gospel of salvation, we must hold it 
to be an essential principle of eschatology that God 
always has done, and always will do, all that perfect 
wisdom and love permit or require to save men. The 
judgment can only issue in the forfeiture of his true 
destiny by any human being through his own wilful and 
persistent perversion of his moral nature. The doc- 
trine so long current in theology, that God from eter- 
nity consigned a portion of mankind to everlasting 
misery, and the common representation that, at a cer- 
tain point, the mercy of God breaks down, and that 
thereupon he turns in revenge upon men, did not 



THE FUTURE LIFE 241 

spring from the Christian conception of God, and can- 
not be harmonized with it. The New Testament and 
the reason and conscience of humanity agree in repre- 
senting the retributions which follow sin as the inevi- 
table consequences of sinful life and character. The 
misery, pain, and loss into which sin at length plunges 
the soul are the consequences of the sin itself, bringing 
forth fruit after its kind. 1 These consequences God is 
ever seeking to avert by the offers of his gracious for- 
giveness. God leaves nothing undone that can be 
done for man's salvation. But to save a soul that will 
not be saved is impossible. The fearful possibility of 
the loss of the soul cannot, therefore, be denied. The 
idea of eternal sinning, and the correlative idea of eter- 
nal punishment, cannot be excluded by considerations 
drawn from the divine goodness, since God is also just 
and man is free. Hence our Lord warned men with 
solemn and awful words of this terrible goal to which 
persistence in sin and contempt of divine mercy must 
inevitably lead. No just exegesis can explain away 
those terrible words of the Saviour concerning the 
outer darkness, the unquenchable fire, and the sin 
that hath never forgiveness. Nor can any sound 
philosophy deny their meaning and the reality of the 
peril to which they refer. 

1 The essence of the Christian doctrine of retribution is powerfully pre- 
sented in the great epic of Dante. Dr. William T. Harris, in his work on 
Dante, states its substance in these words : " The threefold future world pre- 
sents an exhaustive picture of man's relations to his deeds. Whatever man 
does, he does to himself ; therefore the effects are found in himself." My col- 
league, Professor Porter, has called my attention to an expression of the same 
conception in Philo : " Those who think they are doing good or ill to others 
will be found, in either case, to be doing it to themselves." Quod deterius, etc., 
§'7- 



242 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

Respecting the nature and conditions of the heavenly 
life, no full and clear revelation has been granted us. 
The representations of heaven which are given in 
Scripture are chiefly symbolic and figurative. Their 
essential import is that the life of heaven is a life of 
sinless blessedness. This life involves the perpetual 
presence of Christ and perfect fellowship with him. 
In a word, heaven means the completion of the spirit- 
ual life which is begun here. The New Testament 
teaches that eternal life is already begun on earth in 
those who live the Christian life (John vi. 47, 54), and 
that the Christian is already a citizen of the heavenly 
world (Phil. iii. 20). The principles of the Christian 
life which are applicable in this world are really change- 
less and eternal, and must, therefore, be applicable to 
the soul in all the stages of its progress. Heaven 
must be the consummation of every good desire, every 
holy motive, and every noble effort which we ever 
cherish or put forth on earth. It is the Christian life 
in its full fruition ; the most perfect possible realization 
of knowledge and holiness of which the soul is capable. 

It seems essential to this conception of the perfect life 
that it should be one of growth. So far as we can 
judge from our earthly experience, constant progress 
must be an element of man's complete happiness. 
The human soul appears to be a growing thing, attain- 
ing its full consciousness and command of itself, and so 
realizing its destiny, only by continuous growth. Man 
can never find his final goal in an arrest of develop- 
ment, but only in perpetual progress and achievement. 
For the infinite Being blessedness must consist in his 
own absolute and eternal perfection. Finite beings like 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 243 

man, however, are by their very nature subject to 
limitation. Their blessedness must consist in perpet- 
ual striving towards perfection, thereby transcending 
more and more their limitations in knowledge and in 
character. 

The Bible represents heaven as a society, and we can 
only think of it as such. Man is a social being, and he 
can only find his true destiny in society. This funda- 
mental conception of the perfect life carries with it the 
idea of our recognition of one another in heaven, and of 
the perpetuation of the relations of love and service 
which have existed on earth. Love is in its essence a 
social principle, and heaven will be the perfected life of 
love. Thus it appears that the spiritual life must be 
the same in principle, both on earth and in heaven. It 
is the life of love in its very nature. It can never be 
anything else since love never fails or falls away (i Cor. 
xiii. 8 )} Thus the future life must be the completion 
of the life of love which is begun here. The pure and 
holy fellowships of earth must be purged of all imper- 
fection, and be elevated and enriched through the ever 
enlarging capacity of human souls to appreciate and 
realize all the qualities that contribute to the perfection 
of personal life. 

The heavenly life must also be a life of service. 
Heaven means fellowship with God and likeness to 
him, and since God is love, it must mean the full 
realization of the life of love, in the society of which 
heaven is composed. But service is a fruit of love and 
is inseparable from it. Only in conformity to the laws 
of love and service, which have their seat in the divine 

1 OvicTTon itlirni. 



244 DOCTRINE AND LIFE 

perfection, can men attain the highest joys of their 
existence, or realize the true significance of their being. 
I have read that when Thomas a Kempis was a 
student, his teacher asked the class to which he be- 
longed, what passage of Scripture gave to them the 
most attractive idea of heaven. One said, " And they 
shall see his face;" and another, "There shall be no 
more sorrow ; " and another, " There shall be no more 
death ; " but Thomas a Kempis, the youngest member 
of the class, replied, " And his servants shall serve 
him." And it should be a part of Christian hope to 
expect that larger spheres of service await us in the 
world of God, since, as Archbishop Trench has so 
finely said — 

We doubt not that in other worlds above, 
There must be other offices of love; 
That other tasks and ministries there are, 
Since it is promised that his servants there 
Shall serve him still. 



INDEX 



Animal, the, how essentially distin- 
guished from man, 18 sq. 

Arguments, the theistic, 41 sq. 

Atonement, doctrine of, 158 sq. ; the 
correlate of sin, 158 ; relation of the 
idea of God to, 158-160 ; import of 
the doctrine, 160 sq. ; biblical doc- 
trine of, 167, sq. ; meets the ends of 
punishment, 1 70 sq. ; a perpetual 
and eternal process, 171 sq. 

Augustine on the native religiousness 
of man, 20 ; quoted, 30, 149 ; his 
theory of original sin, 152 ; on love, 
210. 

Bible, the, as a product and record of 
divine revelation, 52 sq. ; centres 
in Christ, 58 sq. ; inspiration of, 
61 sq. 

Brooks, Phillips, Dr., quoted, 48. 

Christ, person and work of, according 
to John, 25-27; according to Paul, 
27 sq. ; his relation to natural reli- 
gion, 50, 51 ; central in the Bible, 
58 sq. ; his teaching concerning the 
Fatherhood of God, 74 sq. ; bearing 
of his teaching upon the doctrine 
of the Trinity, 89 sq. ; the person 
and character of, 105 sq. ; complete- 
ness of his character, 108 sq. ; in- 
carnation of, 116 sq. ; relation of 
the Spirit's work to the work of, 
125 sq., 133 sq. 

Conscience, its sense of guilt for sin. 
146 sq. 

Dante on the consequences of con- 
duct, 241. 



Darwin, Charles, quoted, 34. 

Doctrine, see Theology. 

Edwards, Jonathan, on faith, 192. 

Experience, Christian, see Life, 

Faith, natural tendency to, in man, 
22 sq. ; Christian doctrine of, 191 
sq.; as trust, 191-194; as a per- 
sonal relation to Christ, 194, 195 ; 
a growing thing, 195, 196; its sav- 
ing significance, 196-200; its in- 
tellectual element, 200-202 ; as a 
presupposition of prayer, 220. 

Fatherhood of God, 74 sq. ; its rela- 
tion to the doctrine of the Trinity, 
100 sq.; presupposed in prayer, 
216. 

Fisher, Dr. G. P., quoted, 95. 

God, some form of belief in, universal, 
34 sq. ; various forms of belief in, 
37 s <?- 1 grounds of belief in, 39 sq. ; 
and revelation, 52 sq. ; character of 
71 sq. ; Fatherhood of, 74 sq. ; his 
love and righteousness, 79 sq. ; effect 
in theology of one-sided concep- 
tions of, 83 sq. ; as Trinity, 87 sq. ; 
relation of atonement to the idea of, 
161 sq. ; love central in, 210. 

Habit, power of, 149 sq. 

Hare, J. C, quoted, 135. 

Harris, Dr. W. T., cited, 241. 

Hitchcock. Dr. R. D., on "eternal 
atonement," 173, 174. 

Holiness, see Righteousness. 

Hugo, Victor, quoted, 147, 148. 

Hutton, R. H., on the Trinity, 100, 
101. 



245 



246 



INDEX 



Immortality, grounds of belief in, 
229, 230. 

Incarnation, the significance of, 116 
sq. ; relation of sin to, 139 ; rela- 
tion of the intercession of Christ 
to, 186 sq. 

Inerrancy, alleged, of the Bible, 64 sq. 

Inspiration of the Bible, 61 sq. 

Intercession of Christ, doctrine of, 
176 sq. ; biblical representations of, 
178-180; practical religious signifi- 
cance of, 180 sq.; relation of, to 
atonement, 182-185 ; relation of, to 
the incarnation, 186, 187; empha- 
sizes the objective character of 
Christ's work, 187-190. 

Jewish History, peculiarity of, 56 sq. 

John the apostle, his view of Christ 
as the " Word," 25 sq.; his doctrine 
of God's Fatherhood and man's 
sonship, 76, 77 ; his doctrine of 
Christ's person, 89, 190, 92; influ- 
enced by the Spirit, 132. 

Judgment, doctrine of, 237-241. 

Justice, see Righteousness ; in God, as 
related to atonement, 160 sq. 

Justin Martyr, quoted, 30. 

Kant on the " good will," 149. 

Kempis a Thomas cited, 244. 

Life, relation of doctrine to, 1 sq.; 
its comprehension of thought and, 
therefore, of theology, 12 sq. ; im- 
portance for, of the doctrine of 
God, 71 sq. ; the spiritual, fos- 
tered by the Spirit, 131 sq. ; the 
future, doctrine of, 228 sq. 

Lincoln, Prof. Heman, on theories of 
original sin and evolution, 156. 

Longfellow, H. W., quoted, 23. 

Love as a name for the ethical nature 
of God, 79 sq.; in its relation to 
the doctrine of the Trinity, 99 sq. ; 
centrality of, in religion, 203; a 
personal relation, 204 ; an intelli- 
gent choice, 205 ; a motive to ser- 
vice, 206 ; the basal principle of 



society, 207, 208 ; scope of, 208-210; 
the opposite of sin, 210; essential 
in God, 210 sq.; reflected in nature, 
211 sq. ; leads to self-giving, 213 sq. 

Moral nature of man, significance of, 
18 sq. 

Miiller, Julius, his doctrine of " original 
sin," 153, 154. 

Mysticism, true and false, 127, 128. 

New England Theology, its doctrine 
of sin, 154. 

Newman, J. H., on " unaided reason," 
24 ; on " the light which lighteth 
every man," 32, 33. 

Paul, his view of revelation through 
Christ, 27 sq.; his doctrine of 
Christ's person, 89; his doctrine 
of resurrection, 232 sq. 

Personality, meaning of, 17 sq. 

Peter the apostle, development of, un- 
der the influence of the Holy Spirit, 
132. 

Porter, Prof. F. C, on the relation of 
the New Testament to Christ, 68 ; 
cited, 241. 

Prayer, doctrine of, 216 sq.; rests 
upon Fatherhood of God, 216 ; pre- 
supposed God's willingness to give, 
217, 218 ; more than petition, 219; 
its relation to faith, 220 ; subjection 
to God's will, 221; "in Christ's 
name," 222 ; doctrine of, in the 
parables of the friend at midnight 
and of the unjust judge, 223-225 ; 
whether or not merely subjective in 
its effects, 225; the conditions on 
which it is answered, 226, 227. 

Prophecy, Hebrew, significance of, 

55 sq- 

Reason, whether or not ever "un- 
aided," 24, 25 ; its testimony to the 
existence of God, 42 sq. ; its rela- 
tion to the mystery of the Trinity, 

Religion, relation of, to theology, 
1 sq. See also Life. Natural to 



INDEX 



247 



Religion, Continued. 

man, 20 sq. ; no people wholly 
without, 21, 22 ; grounded in reve- 
lation, 25 sq. 

Resurrection, biblical doctrine of, 231- 

237- 

Revelation, universal, 25 sq., and al- 
ways Christian, 31, 32 ; relation of 
the natural and the Christian, 
49 sq. ; in its relation to the Bible, 
52 sq. ; importance of the doctrine 
of, as compared with that of in- 
spiration, 62 sq. 

Righteousness, the, of God, 79 sq. 

Robertson, F. W., on the origin of the 
cultus of Mary, 114, 115. 

Rothe, Richard, quoted, 59. 

Ruckert quoted, 48. 

Sacrifice of self foreshadowed in 
nature, 211 sq. 

Selfishness as the essence of sin, 139; 
and self-love, 141 sq. 

Self-love distinguished from selfish- 
ness, 141 sq. 

Shakespeare quoted, 148. 

Shedd, Dr. W. G. T., cited, 153. 

Sin, the doctrine of, 138 sq. ; relation of 
the incarnation to, 139; as selfish- 
ness, 141 sq.; as " missing the mark," 
143 ; alien to man's true nature, 143, 
144 ; relation of, to the flesh, 143, 
144 ; biblical representations of, 
146, 147; representations of, in 
literature, 147-149; moral effects 
of, 149 sq. ; theories of the origin 
of, 152 sq. ; the Augustinian theory, 
152, 1 53; federal theory, 153 ; Julius 
Muller's theory, 153, 154; New 
England theory, 154; comments 
on these theories, 155-157; moral 
consequences of, 241. 

Smith, Dr. Henry B., on the interces- 
sion of Christ, 183-185. 

Sonship of men to God, 75 sq. 

Soul, the, " naturally Christian," 1 7 sq. ; 
immortality of, 227 sq. 



Spirit, the Holy, doctrine of, 122 sq.; 
emphasizes the presence of God in 
human life and history, 123 sq. ; 
relation of, to the work of Christ, 
125 sq. ; as the fostering power of 
the spiritual life in men, 131 sq.; 
comes "in Christ's name," 133 sq.; 
his "convicting" function, 136 sq. 
Stearns, Dr. L. R, on the doctrine of 
biblical inerrancy, 65 ; on the char- 
acter of God, y^i 74) cited, 128. 

Strong, Dr. A. H., cited, 153; on eter- 
nal atonement, 172. 

Tennyson quoted, 118, 202, 214, 215, 
219, 226. 

Tertullian on the testimony of the 
soul, 20, 21. 

Testament, the Old, revelation in, 
53 sq. ; the New, the relation of its 
books to Christ, 59 sq. 

Theology, its relation to life, 1 sq. ; its 
differences regarded as important, 
3 sq. ; nature and function of, 6, 7 ; 
its value as theory, 7-9 ; occasion 
of its development, 9, 10; objec- 
tions to, 10-12 ; essentially in- 
volved in " life," 12-14 ; may be re- 
garded from various points of view, 
14 sq. ; its doctrine of God, 71 sq. ; 
one-sided conceptions of, concern- 
ing God, 83 sq. 

Trench, R. C, cited, 244. 

Trinity, the doctrine of, 87 sq.; modal 
conception of, 91 sq. ; best method 
of approaching, 96, 97 ; in what 
sense taught in the Bible, 97, 98 ; 
its harmony with analogy, 98 sq. ; 
deducible from the divine love and 
Fatherhood, 99 sq. ; its practical as- 
pects, 102 sq. 

Unitarianism, its doctrine of God, 
88^. 

Whitefield, George, quoted, 30. 

Whittier, J. G., quoted, 130, 151. 



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